One Word
This winter on The Daily Pattern we’re in a series called One Word. Each day we take one word – a feeling or circumstance – and bring a word from God to it. Let the Word of God speak to your life.
Invocation
Make the sign of the cross, and say,
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation Prayer
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” (Matt. 5:5) O Lord, I am lowly and humble. You alone are my inheritance. Amen.
Word: Psalm 16:11
“You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
Meditation
Birthday by Megan Roegner
My older children go to a Montessori charter school, and Montessori education has its own customs and traditions. One of our favorites is the “walk around the sun” each student does on their birthday. During this Montessori celebration of life, the child walks around a candle or other symbol of the sun, one trip around for each year of their life. Children are encouraged to share a lesson learned or an experience for each year of their life. They can share pictures, and in pre-Covid times, parents were encouraged to attend to help describe what the child was like in their earliest years, before their memories begin. As part of the ceremony, the other students and the teacher all share something that they think is special about the birthday child.
When my husband and I first heard about this tradition, we laughed because it sounded a bit ritualistic, but it’s really a joyful way to create community and to cherish each child’s character. A birthday is more than a celebration, it’s also an invitation to reflect upon our lives’ journey.
This May, I will complete my 40th trip around the sun. It’s a culturally significant birthday. No longer can I pretend that I am a young adult. Barely even young-ish. And when I think about the life path this particular year has taken me on, I can’t ignore that it is one that’s been marked with loss and tears. As I write, I am grieving the unexpected death of a very good friend, who had just turned 40 herself. I am also missing friends who recently moved away. If I had to describe the lesson I learned in this journey around the sun, I think I would say that I learned to say goodbye. But it’s also been a year full of laughter, full of memories, full of telling people how special they are to me, full of people loving me in return.
So when I wake up on that fateful day of my 40th birthday, hair a bit more gray, eyes a bit more wrinkly, heart perhaps a little heavier than the year before, I will also reflect upon how on every step of the path I felt God with me and how even in the hard times, there is still so much joy.
Father, thank you for walking with us on my life’s journey. Let me always feel your presence and the joy that comes with it. Amen.
Prayer for Family
· For my immediate family (parents, spouse, siblings).
· For extended family (cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents)
· For close friends that are as family to me.
· For those who don’t have families, or whose families are broken.
· For forgiveness and reconciliation where there is division in my family.
· For provision where there is need in my family.
· For God to be the foundation, and the cross the center of my family.
· For a generation yet unborn, future members of our family.
Closing Prayer
O Lord and King, your Kingdom comes even without our prayer. But we pray that it would also come among us. We are desperate for your reign and rule, for all we see is rebellion. Come into my heart, my home, my family, my work, my church, my community. Rule with justice and with mercy. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.