Help. Thanks. Wow.

I am reading the new book by Anne Lamott, Help. Thanks.  Wow.:  The Three Essential Prayers.  We began reading it aloud as we drove back from Oregon and got through the introduction.  The book opens, “I do not know much about God and prayer, but I have come to believe over the last twenty-five years that there’s something to be said about keeping prayer simple.  Help.  Thanks.  Wow.”

What a reassuring read.  Our prayer time, whether it is my wife and I or whether it includes the whole family, does in fact mainly consist of these three categories of prayer.  “Help me be a better husband, thanks for this wonderful family, and Wow what an amazing life we have-how did we ever get here.”  I think the category we need to work on most is the Wow category. 

Wow-what a beautiful sunset.  Wow-what a beautiful child we’ve been blessed with.  Wow-we are overwhelmed.  Wow-God has been good to us.  It is good to have our prayer life challenged and enriched by such a splendid author. 

We arrived home yesterday evening after a wonderful visit with family in Oregon.  Tired from the road, we only did a cursory check on the animals.  They are all OK, but I’m looking forward to spending a little more time on them today.  Mostly our farm sitter did a fantastic job.  He’s a great young man.  Anyway, I’ll be doing some animal care this morning.  I’ll be cleaning and filling water troughs, feeding mineral to the goats, inspecting a cut near Whisper’s eye which happened before we left, fixing the lights in the chicken coop, trying to handle the new sheep, and maybe even trimming some hooves.  The list is always long.

There’s always a million things to do, but I need to just pick a few and stick with them in order to keep from getting completely overwhelmed.  I’ll probably try to get some goose hunting in this afternoon. 

Looking forward to another wonderful day on the farm.  Wow, I missed it even though it was nice to have a little break.