Thursday’s Child

I am Thursday’s child on Reflections Along the Way, a devotional page on Facebook. I have the supreme enjoyment of writing for the Thursday slot on that page.Each writer was asked to post a short bio and their devotional for the day and following is my contribution this week.Thursday’s child, according to the old poem, has far to go, and I have travelled quite a way from the city of my birth, Richmond Virginia. The middle child of five, I found escape from the summer heat in the local bookmobile that parked at the end of our street each week. There I was introduced to characters that drew me in like a secret passageway to other worlds. I’d check out books and then hide away under the ballooning Forsythia bush in the corner of our yard with a quilt pulled from my bed. Escape was essential, as our father was greatly troubled by his best friend, alcohol. The two of them managed to keep our home in turmoil and it was always a relief when our father went away on a guard weekend.
I stopped running from God one Sunday in Mobile Alabama when I was 20. I was living away from home working on my clinical for college. My student loan check had been stolen from my mailbox and I was down to twenty-five cents and a quarter tank of gas. I flipped open my Bible and it fell to Matthew 6:25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink…”
It was the first time I knew God had spoken specifically to me and I was overwhelmed by His love. He has been with me for many years now, and as my former pastor used to ask me, “Has He failed you yet?” and I can still answer no, He has never failed me.

Lately I have been writing about an exercise to ground you in tense emotional circumstances and I think it would even work in catastrophic events. It’s very simple, you can remember it by threes…
Three questions
Three motions
Three responses
It’s called LIT-M, and is an idea re-worked. Living In The Moment.

When you are in a tense emotional situation you ask yourself:

1.First Question: Exactly where am I right this minute? (Geographically, time wise, etc)
1.First motion: Look down at your feet.
1. First response:(example, I’m in my kitchen)
This focuses you on the immediate. You are not allowed to worry about where you just came from or where you are headed, you are only allowed to focus on your current situation.
2.Second Question: Ask yourself, “What does God have to say about where I am, emotionally, etc.” If you have your Bible or an App, search some scriptures pertinent to your emotional situation. Ask God.
2.Second Motion: Look up, at the ceiling if you are inside, at the sky if you are outside.
2. Pray for a response, pray for illumination through the scriptures.

3. Third Question: “God, what do you want me to do in this moment and this circumstance?”
3.Third Motion: Look around you.
3.Third Response, you again pray, search the scriptures and listen for God’s leading.

You are not allowed to wallow in the past, or second guess yourself. You are not allowed to fret about the future, not even the next moment, it is all about living and breathing exactly in that moment, because God is there with you.
The motions are down, up, and around.

Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.Psalm 139:12