Great thoughts (but not mine!)

I've been thinking all evening about what I should/could blog about. Trying to come up with interesting or profound ideas and insights. But I didn't come up with anything. So I turned to John Baillie's A Diary Of Private Prayer, a place I often turn to for fresh thoughts, and found this prayer:

Now unto Thee, O heavenly Father, be all praise and glory that day by day Thou dost richly fill my life with various blessings:

A home to share, kindred to love, and friends to cherish;

A place to fill and work to do;

A green world to live in, blue skies above me, and pure air to breathe;

Healthy and simple pleasures;

My race's long history to remember and its great men to follow;

Good books to read and many arts and crafts to delight in;

So much that is worth knowing and the skill and science to know it;

Those high thougths that sometimes fill my mind and come I know not whence;

Many happy days, and that inward calm that Thou givest me in days of gloom;

The peace, passing understanding, that comes from Thine indwelling in my soul;

The faith that looks through death and the hope of a larger life beyond the grave.

I thank thee, O Lord God, that though with liberal hand Thou hast at all times showered Thy blessings upon our human kind, yet in Jesus Christ Thou has done greater things for us than Thou ever didst before:

Making home sweeter and friends dearer;

Turning sorrow into gladness and pain into the soul's victory;

Robbing death of its sting;

Robbing sin of its power;

Making peace more peaceful and joy more joyful and faith and hope more secure. Amen.

I feel like I have so many things jumping around in my head - blessings of a restored friendship, memories of a great weekend spent with friends, looking forward to a weekend in GR but sad Josh won't be with me. I feel all sorts of things tonight - happy, worried, excited, overwhelmed (mostly about chores/details I need to take care of but haven't yet), bored, blessed. All over the map. But this prayer spoke to me and reminded me of the wealth of blessings God has given me. I bolded the words and phrases that particularly stuck out to me.

A Diary of Private Prayer was given to me a few years back and never fails to remind, instruct, end encourage me through the simple prayers printed on each page. I love praying through them, and once I'm done wonder at myself for not praying more of them. Highly recommended.