Early Morning Sounds in the Stillness

              I wrote this in January and planned to file it away for use at a later time. This week, it kept coming to mind so decided to post it. 

                The below freezing temperatures coupled with frosty surfaces pervaded the early morning. As I walked to fill the stock tank, an encompassing stillness filled the early day as the sun struggled to burn through the morning overcast.

                Suddenly, a pecking noise broke the morning silence. I halted my movement to locate the source of the rhythmic, measured staccatos piercing the quiet beginning of the day.

                Within a few seconds, I spotted the barely perceptible form of a woodpecker initiating the recurring tapping. The bird perched on a high limb of the bare silver leaf maple tree. A pause punctuated the morning as if the woodpecker checked out its surroundings momentarily. Then it resumed its systematic pecking as it searched for nourishment on that frigid morning.

The Silver Leaf Maple Tree - I wish I
would have had my camera with me
that morning. Since I didn't,  I had to 
shoot this on another dreary morning.

                As I stood for a moment, with my eyes fixated on the upper limb and the persistent bird, I thought of the scripture from the inspired writings of Paul to the Thessalonian group of believers. The command reads:

Rejoice always,

Pray without ceasing,

In everything give thanks;

For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

                Paul began that section with rejoicing. Some people characterize this as being a “glass half-full” person. My mother modeled this attitude. Mother introduced my sister and me to the children’s book Pollyanna. Soon after that, Angie and I would call Mother “Pollyanna” when we would see her rejoicing or finding good in almost every situation. In our adolescent years, there were times we found Mother's optimistic approach downright irritating.

                My father liked to say whenever we discussed I Thessalonians 5:17 that verse showed we needed to maintain an attitude of prayer.  He meant a readiness to pray should pervade our work, play, and worship. He implied when a crisis looms suddenly on the horizon of our life, we will be ready to make a request of the Lord.

                Paul addressed thankfulness as he closed the discussion on prayer. Sometimes in our western world today, the spirit of thankfulness seems to be in short supply in our country, one of the most affluent in our world. Our society appears to tower above all other eras in history in our comforts, our materialism, and instantaneous gratification. Yet how sad that seldom are the words “thank you” spoken to other humans, let alone speaking it in prayer to the Creator, Sustainer, and Omnipotent God.

                 What a small, but persistent creature the woodpecker was that wintry morning! I hold its constant tapping in my memory as a reminder to continually pray, rejoice, and give thanks.