New and shiny......

is what the new year looked like to me only 5 days ago.

I love new and shiny. It is why I shop. It is why newborns are precious no matter what they do. New and shiny hold potential and a promise of future joy.

This morning was not new and shiny. It ached in my shoulders where that massage that felt great 2 days ago is now sore. It creaked in my neck where I slept funny and mocked me when I woke up 15 minutes before my 5am alarm.

Still, all those creaks and aches brought me closer to my knees as I prayed this morning. 4 days out of 365 is all I had of my own strength to do good and rise early. I wonder why it took me 4 days to realize that. I have only actually been up early for 2 days, the first two I slept in.

Is that not just like us to make more of what we did than what it actually was?

So for the rest of 2011 I pray will be spent daily on my knees every morning, praying for strentgh to get up again the next day. Because I know by evening I will have thought of another way to take credit for that which I did not do.