New Mercies

I've decided that Thursdays are my new favorite day of the week.

At least for this season of the year.

This is the beginning of the school year, a new season of caring for the kids of this community.

It follows a season of rest and renewal that followed the close of the previous school season.

I have noticed that within my year, I have these seasons where my focus, attention, and efforts vary.

This fall season begins our school year, but for the past thirteen years, fall also means training.

More specifically, training for the annual Indianapolis Monumental Marathon and Half-Marathon.

For the past thirteen years, I've participated in this event every year but one, sidelined by an injury.

But even that year, training was a big part of the season.

To prepare for these events, I follow a plan.

An integral part of a solid plan is the day of rest.

The rest day is a day when we allow our bodies to recover and get a bit more sleep.

For me, this day also gives me more time to spend in the morning preparing for the day.

Time for silence, reading, writing, and planning at a slower pace.

My training plans give me two of these days of rest and renewal.

Thursdays and Sundays.

I enjoy my daily workouts, and I enjoy my Sunday rest day.

But I've noticed that there's something special about the Thursday rest day.

Within this season of my life and this season of the year, I've found this season of the week.

I find rest and renewal in this extra hour of time.

But one thing I have come to cherish is the time of remembrance.

I've used this hour, more and more often, to sit and reflect.

To remember the joys and the beauty life has to offer.

To remember that each new day, new week, and new season is a new opportunity.

This remembrance reminded me of a passage in Lamentations and the words of an old, familiar hymn.

This Thursday, as I rested, I was renewed, as I remembered these words.

Thank you, Thursday.

I needed this.

“It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed,

because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:22-23 KJV

"Morning by morning new mercies I see.

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me."

Thomas Chisholm

Background photo by Dewang Gupta on Unsplash