The Prayer Porch

Tag: faith

Honoring All Mothers: A Careful Look at Grief and Joy

Mother’s Day is coming.

The stores know it. The commercials know it. The flower shops and the brunch menus and the greeting card aisles all know it. And for some of us that is a beautiful thing. A reason to celebrate, to gather, to say out loud what we sometimes forget to say the other 364 days of the year.

But we want to sit on the porch today with the mothers the commercials forget.

We want to sit with the woman who is scrolling through her phone this weekend seeing everyone else’s celebrations while her arms still remember the weight of the baby she never got to bring home. The one who painted a nursery and chose a name and loved with her whole heart before the world ever had a chance to know. You are a mother. Your grief is real. And God has not forgotten the child He knew before you did.

Psalm 34:18 says “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” He is not far from you this weekend. He is closest to you right where the ache is deepest.

We want to sit with the woman who lost her mother this year. Or ten years ago. Or thirty years ago and still reaches for the phone on Mother’s Day before remembering. Grief does not follow a calendar and love does not have an expiration date. Missing her is not weakness. It is the evidence of something that mattered.

We want to sit with the mother whose adult children are busy. Or distant. Or difficult. The one who raised them, poured herself into them, prayed over them in the dark, and now waits for a text that comes late or not at all. The one who would never say it out loud but carries a quiet wondering about whether any of it mattered.

It mattered. Every sleepless night mattered. Every prayer mattered. Every sacrifice that no one saw and no one thanked you for mattered. Galatians 6:9 reminds us “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Your harvest is coming. Do not give up on them.

And we want to sit with the mother in the nursing home. The one in the chair by the window on Sunday afternoon watching the parking lot. The one whose hands still remember rocking babies even when her mind can no longer recall their names. The one whose children mean to visit and keep meaning to visit and somehow Sunday comes and goes and the chair by the window stays empty.

She is still a mother. Her love did not diminish when her memory did. And if no one comes this Sunday we pray she feels the presence of the One who never leaves. Isaiah 46:4 promises “Even to your old age I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made and I will bear. I will carry and will save.” He carries what we cannot carry. He remembers what the mind forgets. He sits in the chair beside her even when we do not.

Mother’s Day is joyful and we do not want to take that from anyone. But joy and grief live in the same house sometimes. And the truest thing we can do on a day like this is make room for both.

So if you are celebrating this weekend, celebrate fully. And if you are grieving this weekend, grieve honestly. And if you are somewhere in between, holding joy in one hand and sorrow in the other, you are in very good company on this porch.

You are seen. You are known. You are loved by a God who called Himself a comforter, who compared His own love to that of a mother who cannot forget her nursing child, who said even if she forgets, I will not forget you.

He has not forgotten you. Not today. Not ever.

Happy Mother’s Day to every kind of mother. Every kind of daughter. Every woman carrying something tender this weekend.

We see you.

Lord, this weekend we bring You every mother who is hurting. The ones grieving babies they never got to hold. The ones missing mothers they can no longer call. The ones waiting by the phone for children who have grown distant. The ones sitting by windows in quiet rooms hoping someone remembers. Meet them where they are. Let them feel Your presence so close it feels like arms around them. Remind them that they are seen and known and deeply loved by You. And for every mother celebrating this weekend, multiply their joy. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Whatever this Mother’s Day holds for you, we are glad you are here on the porch. Will you share how we can pray for you this weekend in the comments?

05/08/2026
Finding Strength in Weakness: The Beauty of Real Faith

Pablo Picasso once said, “Good taste is the enemy of great art.”

He was talking about painting. But sit with that for a moment on the porch and see if it doesn’t say something true about faith too.

Good taste is about refinement. About knowing what belongs and what doesn’t. About edges that are clean and surfaces that are smooth and nothing too raw or uncomfortable left showing. Good taste keeps everything presentable.

But art is not about presentable. Art is about human. And human is messy.

So is the gospel.

We have spent a great deal of energy in the church making Christianity tasteful. Polished testimonies with tidy endings. Struggles that are always safely in the past tense. Prayers that sound composed. Faces that look like they have it together. We have refined the faith until it gleams and somewhere in all that polishing we have lost the thing that makes it real.

Here is what we know to be true: you are not useless to God because you are broken. You are useless to God if you pretend you are not.

The most powerful moment in all of Scripture may be the one that takes place in a garden before dawn, when a woman named Mary Magdalene stands outside an empty tomb and weeps. She is not composed. She is not refined. She has nothing left. The one she loved is gone and she doesn’t even know where they have put him. She is, by every measure, a mess.

And into that mess, Jesus speaks her name.

Not the cleaned-up version of her name. Not the Mary she was trying to become. Her name. As she was. Standing there undone in the early morning dark.

And she became the first witness to the resurrection. Not a theologian. Not a Pharisee with impressive credentials. A broken woman who showed up weeping and met the risen Christ in her mess.

That is not an accident. That is the whole story.

Paul understood this. He wrote from his own unresolved weakness in 2 Corinthians 12:9 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Not after the weakness is resolved. Not once you have worked through it. In it. The power of God shows up most clearly in the places we have stopped pretending are fine.

God is not looking for refined. He is looking for real.

He takes the jagged edges and the unfinished places and the parts of us we would never put on display and He makes something out of them that good taste never could. He is less interested in our polish than our surrender. Less moved by our composure than our honesty. He has always done His best work in the mess.

The clay on the ground. The tears in the garden. The cross on the hill.

None of it was tasteful. All of it was holy.

So we lay down the performance this morning. We stop smoothing the edges long enough to let God work with what is actually there. We bring the unfinished, unresolved, unpolished version of ourselves to the porch and we let that be enough.

Because it is. It always has been.

Lord, forgive us for the energy we spend trying to look like we have it together. For the testimonies we rehearse and the struggles we hide and the prayers we dress up before we bring them to You. Today we come as we are. Messy and real and trusting that Your power shows up best in exactly this kind of weakness. Make something beautiful out of what we have been too ashamed to show You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

05/06/2026
Golden Tempo: A Kentucky Derby Underdog’s Triumph

Nobody saw it coming. That is the whole point.

On Saturday at Churchill Downs, a bay colt named Golden Tempo lined up with 17 other horses for the 152nd running of the Kentucky Derby. His odds were 23-1. Three quarters of a mile into the race he was sitting in dead last. Nineteenth out of nineteen horses. By every measure the story was already written and Golden Tempo was not in it.

And then something happened.

Guided by jockey José Ortiz, Golden Tempo weaved through the field, charged down the stretch, and overtook the race favorite Renegade in the final moments to win the Kentucky Derby. The crowd erupted. Tears fell. History was made.

Trainer Cherie DeVaux became the first woman in history to train a Kentucky Derby winner. Standing in the winner’s circle with her husband, her sister, her daughter, and her young nephew Maverick in her arms, she wept. When asked what it felt like she said simply: “I’m just glad that I could be a representative of all women everywhere that we can do anything we set our minds to.”

And if that were not enough, José Ortiz edged out his own brother Irad Ortiz Jr., who was riding Renegade, in the final stretch. The brothers exchanged a fist bump after crossing the finish line. Brother against brother. Grace between competitors. A fist bump that said everything words could not.

We sat and watched all of that unfold on a Saturday afternoon and something in us recognized it. Not just as a great race. As a parable.

Because is that not exactly how God works?

He starts with the one nobody is watching. The longshot. The one sitting in last place three quarters through the race of their life. The one the world has already counted out. And then in His timing, not ours, He moves.

Hebrews 12:1 tells us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Not the race we planned. Not the race where we started in front. The race that is set before us. The one with the unexpected turns and the moments of dead last and the stretches where we cannot see how any of it ends well.

Golden Tempo did not know he was making history. He just ran.

Cherie DeVaux did not stand in that barn for years thinking about being the first woman to win the Kentucky Derby. She just trained her horse and trusted the work and showed up every morning before dawn in dusty boots doing what she was called to do.

That is faithfulness. And faithfulness, in God’s economy, always finds its moment.

Micah 6:8 calls us to walk humbly. Not to announce ourselves. Not to demand our moment. To walk humbly and trust the One who numbers our steps. DeVaux walked humbly into that winner’s circle and the moment found her.

And José Ortiz, who had just won the Kentucky Oaks the day before and then the Derby itself, when asked about beating his own brother said: “I want him to win the Derby of course. I know it’s his dream as well.” Not a word of boasting. Just grace for the brother who ran alongside him and came in second.

That is 1 Corinthians 13 with a jockey’s silks on.

We do not always know where we are in the race. We do not always know if we are in last place or closing ground or closer to the finish than we think. But we know Who holds the outcome. We know Who sees what the crowd cannot see. We know that dead last at the three quarter mark is not the final word when God is writing the story.

Golden Tempo. A name that sounds almost like a prayer. A golden rhythm. A pace set by something deeper than odds or expectation.

May we all run like that today.

Lord, You have always chosen the longshot. The last. The overlooked. The one nobody was watching. Remind us today that You see exactly where we are in the race and You are not worried. Teach us to run with endurance, to walk in humility, and to cross every finish line with a fist bump for the ones who ran beside us. And when the moments of history find us, expected or not, may our first words always be Yours. To You be all the glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Where in your life has God surprised you by showing up when you felt like you were in last place? We would love to hear from you in the comments.

05/04/2026
Understanding God’s Unconditional Love

There is a scene in the film Ragamuffin that is worth pausing the movie for. Rich Mullins is in a car, somewhere in the dark, running from himself the way he often did. His friend slips a cassette tape into the player and the voice of Brennan Manning fills the car. And something in Rich Mullins breaks open.

The words Manning spoke that night were not complicated. They were not a theological argument or a carefully constructed sermon outline. They were simply this:

“I dare you to trust that I love you, just as you are. Not as you should be. Because none of us are as we should be.”

Rich Mullins wept. And perhaps we understand why.

We spend so much of our lives trying to become someone God could finally be proud of. We clean ourselves up before we pray. We confess before we come close. We perform and we strive and we exhaust ourselves in the pursuit of a version of ourselves that feels worthy of being loved. And all the while, the God of the universe is waiting at the door of our heart saying the same thing He has always been saying: come as you are.

Manning spent his lifetime preaching one sermon in a thousand different ways. He believed that the central question of the Christian life was not “Are you good enough?” but rather the question Jesus Himself will ask on the last day. Manning put it this way:

“I am utterly convinced that on Judgment Day the Lord Jesus is going to ask each of us one question and only one question: Did you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I longed to hear the sound of your voice?”

That question lands differently depending on where we are sitting when we hear it.

For some of us it lands like relief, like finally being seen. For others it lands like a quiet conviction because if we are honest, we have heard about the love of God our whole lives and never quite let it reach the deep places. We have nodded at it from a safe distance. We have agreed with it theologically while quietly believing in our hearts that it applies to everyone except us.

Manning called this out with a grace that never felt like shame. He said the real believers would answer yes. But many faithful churchgoers, many dutiful sermon-givers, many consistent tithers would have to quietly reply: “Well, frankly, no sir. I never really believed it.”

There is the difference. Not between the righteous and the wicked. Between those who received the love and those who kept it at arm’s length.

Zephaniah 3:17 tells us that God rejoices over us with singing. Not tolerates us. Not endures us. Rejoices. The God who spoke the mountains into existence quiets Himself over us with love and breaks into song. That is not the God of our low self-esteem. That is not the God we have made in the image of our most critical inner voice.

Manning said it with the kind of plainness that stops us in our tracks: “I could more easily contain Niagara Falls in a teacup than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God.”

The wild, uncontainable love. Not the love that waits for us to get it right. Not the love that keeps score. The love that was already running toward us while we were still a long way off.

The question is not whether God loves us. The question Manning dared us to answer is whether we believe it. Whether we have let it past the front door of our hearts and into the rooms we are most ashamed of. Whether we have allowed it to be the loudest voice in the room.

Rich Mullins believed it eventually. Imperfectly, messily, with tears in a car on a dark road, but he believed it. And it changed everything about the music he made and the life he lived and the way he loved people on the fringes.

We can believe it too. Not because we have earned it or figured it out, but because the invitation has never been rescinded. It is still standing. It was standing before we woke up this morning and it will be standing long after we close our eyes tonight.

Do you believe that He loves you?

Not as you should be. As you are. Right now. On this ordinary day. In this imperfect life. With everything you are carrying and everything you have done and everything you wish you could undo.

He loves you. He has always loved you. And He is not finished yet.

Father, forgive us for the ways we have kept Your love at a safe distance. For believing in it with our minds while guarding against it with our hearts. Today we open the doors we have kept closed. We receive what we cannot earn. We trust what we cannot fully understand. We say yes to the question You are asking. Yes, Lord. We believe that You love us. And we are letting that change everything. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Has there been a moment in your life when the love of God finally felt real to you?

05/01/2026
The Ragamuffin and The Holy Life

There is a moment in the film Ragamuffin where you stop watching a movie and start watching a mirror. Rich Mullins was barefoot, restless, brilliant, and broken and somehow more surrendered to God than most polished pews will ever produce. He did not fit the mold of the Christian celebrity he accidentally became. He gave away his royalties, moved to a Navajo reservation, and lived on little more than what a Navajo family might earn. He was, by every worldly measure, a non-conformist.

And perhaps that is exactly what holiness looks like when it is the real thing.

We have dressed holiness up for so long that we barely recognize it when it shows up barefoot. We expect it to be tidy and triumphant, well-spoken and well-funded. But the saints who have left the deepest marks on the kingdom tend to look more like Rich Mullins than a keynote speaker at a conference. They are people who got so close to Jesus that the world stopped making sense to them.

Rich said it plainly: “I think I would rather live on the verge of falling, and let my security be in the all-sufficiency of the grace of God, than to live in some kind of pietistic illusion of moral excellence.”

That is not a man chasing comfort. That is a man chasing God.

He also said: “I take comfort in knowing that it was the shepherds to whom the angels appeared when they announced Christ’s birth. Invariably throughout the course of history, God has appeared to people on the fringes. It’s nice to find theological justification for your quirks.”

We smile at that. But underneath the humor is something profound. God has always chosen the unlikely, the overlooked, the ones who do not quite fit. The ragamuffins. The barefoot ones. The ones sitting at rickety pianos in torn jeans when everyone else is dressed up and playing it safe.

Romans 12:2 says it this way: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Non-conformity is not a personality type. It is a posture of the soul. It is what happens when we are so filled with the Spirit that the things the world offers simply lose their appeal.

Rich Mullins lost his appeal for fame, for affluence, for the polished version of Christian life long before he died on that Kansas highway in 1997. What he never lost was his appetite for God. And maybe that is the whole point.

Holiness is not about being better than everyone else. It is about being so in love with Jesus that you are willing to be different for His sake. To give when the world hoards. To serve when the world climbs. To sit quietly with the poor when the world chases the platform.

Rich left us this: “Be God’s.” Just two words. Written in autographs, spoken from stages, whispered in the quiet of a life that did not look like success but somehow smelled like the kingdom.

We do not need more polished Christians. We need more ragamuffins. More barefoot believers who are too busy loving Jesus to worry about what anyone thinks of them.

So today we ask ourselves the question Rich Mullins quietly asked with his whole life: what would it look like to stop conforming and start surrendering?

Lord, make us brave enough to be ragamuffins for You. Loosen our grip on the things that do not matter. Remind us that holiness is not a performance but a surrender. And when the world looks at us sideways, let us remember that You have always shown up on the fringes, among the barefoot and the broken, with more grace than we deserve and more love than we can hold. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

04/30/2026
Grove Street Cemetery c.1847

Walking through the cemetery, through the ancient oak trees and weathered gravestones
A resting place for the souls gone before us
The feeling of lingering spirits, their untold stories, life, love and broken hearts
Connections that surpass the boundaries of life and death
The cemetery much like a secret garden
A place for reflection, holding space in a quiet mind
We remember the soldiers, the simple folks and those that walked alone
Their names etched in fieldstones, slowly fading as the years go on
Stories of courage and sacrifice, we remember through tears
The gravestones become the silent story-tellers in the tapestry of life
A gentle breeze – spirits felt among us
Silent prayers left to the universe
St. Peter reminds us that we will not be forgotten
Memories in every quiet step
The pages of life continue to turn
The seasons change
The lilacs bloom, in that quiet corner next to the stream
I remember you all too well

*April 30,1976 – April 14, 2025

04/14/2026
Finding Stillness: Embracing God’s Invitation to Rest

There are seasons when God does not ask us to figure it out. He simply asks us to show up.

We have been there – haven’t we? We move through our days perform our faith, perform our marriages, perform our lives and check the boxes. Saying the right things. Keeping it together for everyone who is watching. Sound familiar?

And then, quietly, God points to a little place.

Maybe it is a stretch of coastline where the waves do not care how well you are doing. Maybe it is a chair by a window with a view that asks nothing of you. Maybe it is simply the seat beside someone you love, with nowhere to be and nothing to prove.

He leads us there not because we have earned the rest but because we need it.

Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10

Not to be productive. Not to be impressive. Not to be healed by next week. Just to be still.

There is a kind of restoration that only happens when we stop performing. When we let the ocean be loud so we can be quiet. When we sit and simply breathe. When we let God be God and release ourselves from the exhausting work of trying to be everything else.

He is still leading us to still waters. We only need to follow.

“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.” Psalm 23:2-3

Lord, thank You for the quiet places You prepare for us – the ones we almost miss because we are too busy performing to notice Your invitation. Lead us to stillness today. Remind us that Your presence requires nothing from us but our surrender. Teach us to be still and in that stillness, to know You more. Amen.

Friend, has God been pointing you toward a little place of rest? We would love to hear about it in the comments. Pull up a chair – the porch is always open. 🌿

04/08/2026
Holy Thursday Reflections: The Table of Grace

A Holy Thursday Reflection

Luke 22:19 — “This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

He knew.

That is the thing we cannot get past when we sit with Holy Thursday. Jesus knew what was coming. He knew who would betray Him, who would deny Him, who would scatter into the dark. He knew about the garden, the soldiers, the cross.

And He set the table anyway.

He gathered them, all of them, including the ones who would fail Him before sunrise and He broke bread. He poured the cup. He looked around that ordinary room at twelve ordinary men and said this is my body, given for you.

Not given for the faithful. Not given for the ones who would stay. Given for the ones in that room, which means given for all of us, in all of our weakness, in all of our wandering.

He set the table for the ones who would break His heart.

And He called it a gift.

What the Bread Means

There is something about bread that is already broken before it reaches you.

Wheat is cut down. Ground. Pressed. Passed through fire. By the time it arrives at the table it has already endured everything that was required of it to become what it is.

Jesus took that bread, already broken in the making and said this is me. This is what love looks like when it goes all the way. Not held together and pristine and protected. Broken open. Given away. Enough for everyone at the table.

We receive it with empty hands. That is the only posture available to us at this table. We cannot earn a seat here. We cannot bring something worthy of exchange. We simply come with open hands and receive what He has already broken for us.

What the Cup Means

The cup is harder.

In Gethsemane, just hours after this supper, Jesus would ask if the cup could pass from Him. He knew what was in it. The full weight of every sin, every sorrow, every broken thing in every broken life.

And yet at the table, before the garden, before the soldiers, He lifted it and said this is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many.

He offered the cup before He drank it Himself.

That is the kind of love we are dealing with here. A love that looks ahead at everything it will cost and still says take this, drink, this is for you.

We have not fully sat with this. We receive it too quickly, too casually, too familiar with the words to feel the weight of them anymore.

Poured out for you.

For you, specifically. Not for humanity in the abstract. For you – with your name, your history, your particular collection of failures and fears and quiet shames. He knew all of it when He lifted that cup.

He lifted it anyway.

The Table Is Still Set

Holy Thursday reminds us that we worship a God who initiates. Who gathers. Who prepares a place and invites us to come.

We did not find our way to this table. We were called to it.

And the invitation stands, not because we have made ourselves worthy, but because He has made us welcome. The bread is broken. The cup is poured. The table is set in the middle of the most sorrowful week in human history, and somehow it is the most tender thing we have ever seen.

Come to the table.

Come with empty hands and a full awareness of your need. Come remembering what it cost. Come slowly enough this Thursday to actually taste the gift that is being placed in your hands.

He set this table for you.

Lord, on this Holy Thursday we come to Your table aware of how unworthy we are to sit here and aware that You set it anyway. Thank You for bread that was broken so we could be made whole. Thank You for a cup poured out so we would never be empty again. Slow us down tonight. Keep us from receiving Your gift too quickly, too casually, too without wonder. We remember You. We remember what this cost. And we are grateful beyond what words can hold. Amen.

04/02/2026
The Alabaster Jar: An Act of Extravagant Love

A Holy Wednesday Reflection

John 12:6 — “She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

There are two transactions in Holy Week that happen quietly, almost without fanfare

In one, a woman breaks open an alabaster jar of spikenard, a pure, expensive, extravagant oil and pours it over the feet of Jesus. The fragrance fills the whole house. She does not calculate the cost. She does not weigh the return. She simply gives the most precious thing she has to the most precious person she has ever known.

In the other, a man walks to the chief priests and asks a question. Not how can I serve Him but what will you give me?

Thirty pieces of silver.

Two people. One Savior. Two entirely different hearts.

What Mary Knew

Mary of Bethany had sat at His feet before. She had listened when others were busy. She had chosen, as Jesus once said, the better part. And now, with the shadow of the cross beginning to fall across the room, she did the only thing love knows how to do when words fail.

She gave everything.

The spikenard was worth a year’s wages. It was likely her most valuable possession. And she poured it out, not on His head as a king, but on His feet, wiping them with her hair, kneeling in the posture of someone who understands exactly who she is in the presence of exactly who He is.

She was not performing. She was not seeking recognition. She was worshipping.

And Jesus, who accepted it all, said something quietly devastating: She has done this for my burial.

Mary may not have fully understood what she was doing. But her love led her somewhere her mind had not yet caught up to. Love often does that. It moves toward Jesus before the reasoning arrives.

What Judas Chose

We do not know exactly what broke in Judas that week. The gospels give us pieces – his complaint about the waste of the perfume, his love of money, his willingness to negotiate. But underneath all of it is something that haunts us precisely because it is recognizable.

He had been close. He had seen the miracles. He had heard the teaching. He had broken bread at the same table, walked the same dusty roads, watched the same lame walk and blind see.

And still, he walked away and asked, what will you give me?

There is something in us that understands this more than we would like to admit. The slow drift from love to transaction. The moment when we begin to calculate rather than worship. When we hold something back. When we weigh the cost of full surrender and decide, quietly, that we are not quite willing.

We are capable of being very close to Jesus and very far from Him at the same time.

The Fragrance That Remains

Where have we been Mary – pouring out what is most precious, uncalculating, undone by love?

And where have we been something else entirely?

The beautiful thing about this story is that the fragrance of Mary’s offering lingered. Jesus said it would be told wherever the gospel is preached, in memory of her. Extravagant love leaves a mark. It fills the room. It does not evaporate.

Betrayal leaves a mark too, but of a different kind.

This Wednesday of Holy Week, in the quiet before the weight of Thursday and Friday descends, we are invited to choose our transaction.

Not thirty pieces of silver.

Not even our best reasoning or our most careful calculation.

Just the alabaster jar – cracked open, poured out, given freely to the One who is worth everything we have.

Lord, on this quiet Wednesday of Holy Week, we confess that we have sometimes been closer to calculation than to worship. We have held things back. We have weighed the cost of surrender and chosen something smaller. Forgive us. Soften us. Make us more like Mary – willing to break open what is precious, willing to kneel, willing to pour out love without counting what it costs. You are worth far more than anything we could offer. And still You receive it. Still You call it beautiful. Thank You. Amen.

04/01/2026
The Magnifying Glass

1 Thessalonians 5:18 “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

There is something both earnest and a little comical about a person holding a magnifying glass – leaning in, squinting, searching with great intention for the thing they cannot seem to find.

We have all been that person.

We hold our longing up to the light and look for the big answer, the unmistakable sign, the breakthrough that will finally feel like enough. We scan the horizon for the extraordinary. We wait for the moment that is clearly, undeniably, worth being grateful for.

And in the searching, we miss what is already there.

The magnifying glass is pressed so close to the surface that we cannot see what lies directly beneath it.

The Ordinary That We Pass Over

Gratitude, we tend to believe, is something that arrives with the spectacular. We will be thankful when the situation changes, when the prayer is answered in the way we imagined, when the season finally turns. We hold our thanks in reserve, as though it were a reward we grant to God once He has met the threshold.

But 1 Thessalonians 5:18 does not say give thanks for the circumstances. It says in them. In the waiting. In the ordinary Tuesday. In the cup of coffee that is still warm. In the breath we drew without thinking about it. In the quiet that asked nothing of us this morning.

The instruction is tucked between two others – rejoice always and pray continually as though Paul understood that these three belong together. That joy, prayer, and gratitude are not separate practices but a single posture. A way of moving through the day with our eyes open.

What the Lens Reveals

A magnifying glass does not create what it shows. It only enlarges what was already there.

This is what a grateful heart does. It does not manufacture blessings out of nothing. It simply trains our attention on what we have been too distracted, too discouraged, or too hurried to notice.

The ordinary becomes luminous under that kind of looking.

The friendship that has held steady. The body that carried us through another week. The verse that met us exactly where we were. The door that opened quietly, without fanfare, that we nearly walked past without acknowledging.

We were searching for something bigger. And there it was.

In All Circumstances

These three words do not erase the hard ones. They do not ask us to pretend that the difficult season is easy, or that the ache is not real. Gratitude in all circumstances is not the same as gratitude for all circumstances.

It is, rather, the practice of refusing to let the hardness have the only word.

It is the decision to hold the magnifying glass over what remains rather than only over what is missing. To look again. To look more slowly. To trust that the ordinary, examined with intention, holds more grace than we initially gave it credit for.

Paul wrote these words from prison. Which means he knew something we need to hear: gratitude is not a luxury available only in comfortable seasons. It is a discipline available in all of them.

We do not have to wait for the extraordinary to begin giving thanks.

The blessing we have been searching for may already be here – quiet, patient, waiting to be seen. Not hidden from us, but simply small enough that we looked past it in our searching for something larger.

Set the magnifying glass down for a moment. Look at what is already beneath it.

This is the day the Lord has made. This ordinary, unremarkable, grace-filled day.

It was worth noticing all along.

Lord, forgive us for the blessings we have walked past without pausing. Forgive us for holding our gratitude in reserve, as though You had not already given us more than we have taken time to see. Quiet our searching long enough for us to notice what is already here. Teach us to give thanks not only when the answer comes in the way we hoped, but in the waiting, in the ordinary, in the small and unhurried gift of this very moment. In all circumstances, Lord. Even these. Amen.

Friend, what ordinary blessing have you been walking past lately? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

03/23/2026