Hot Season Musings

     There is a little poem-prayer that I’ve been saying with/over Kaitlyn at night sometimes. One of the lines thanks God for His daytime care by saying “You have warmed and clothed and fed me.” Hmmm… perhaps a little too warm?

      And then there’s the night-time devotional book that I’ve been reading occasionally before bed. A recent entry pictured God’s love as a nice, thick blanket we can snuggle under cozily. I laughed. That just doesn’t appeal at the moment…

      One of Kaitlyn’s board books is a cute series of prayers thanking God for the four seasons. Each page has a pop-out piece to play with (flower, sun, leaf, snowman); Kaitlyn loves to chew on them. Unfortunately, spring and fall don't really apply here. Summer's prayer thanks God for "summer's golden sun," and I’m not terribly grateful for the sun most of the time. And I have no idea how she’ll respond to the snowman and winter prayer, when she begins to respond to the content of books and not just the pictures. She might understand the words, but she really won’t know what I’m talking about.

      It’s hot season here, when we sweat even more than usual. In the tropics, people keep out of the sun most of the time anyway; umbrellas are an all-season accessory—important protection in rain or shine! There just isn’t a time of year when I love to have a thick blanket over me. I understand the psalmist’s comparison of God’s law to the sun as Psalm 19 shows it—a hugely strong, searching presence from which nothing can hide. And most days, if I’m going to thank God using a weather metaphor, it’ll be the one from Psalm 121, “The LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not harm you by day…”

       So, we have been modifying those written prayers a bit. At night, I pray “You have cooled and clothed and fed me” because cooling is indeed a gracious gift from God when you live in a tropical country. When I read the seasons book to Kaitlyn, we say thank you for flowers and leaves in general, rather than just in spring and fall. And when we pull out that sun to play with, we say thank you for both the sun and the shade that God gives.

      But I still don’t know what to do with the snowman.