Home Tools for your Journey Jan 7

Wednesday, January 7

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
—Psalm 19:14

Lady Bird Yawn was a most remarkable woman. Born and educated in Mississippi (where her slightly older sibling named her Lady Bird), she told wonderful stories about growing up in a small town in the Delta. She attended college in Oxford, Mississippi, and once at a party, when a dapper young man named William Faulkner asked her to dance, she refused. "He was a terrible dancer," she said.  "I had danced with him before and he stepped all over my feet."

Lady Bird lived a very long life, and she touched the hearts of thousands of people. She was only five feet tall, but her stature in her church community was as big as its bell tower. She never headed a committee, never wanted to be on the Vestry, never wanted to be visible. She simply loved: she loved the children, the clergy, the old and the young. She loved the rich and the poor, those in power and those who seemed helpless. 

She set up an "office" at the post office where she spent an hour or so each day writing notes to people who were sick, who had lost loved ones, who had new babies, or accomplished something at work or at school. She was in perpetual motion, but she had a spirit of deep joy that could only come from being centered in God.

One day I asked her, "Lady Bird, what is your secret? How do you remain so consistently loving?"

"Oh," she smiled. "I don't do anything myself. I just open my eyes every morning and say, ‘May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.’"

Loving God, help me learn from the Lady Birds of this world, wherever they happen to be. And remind me that each and every day offers a chance for me to turn to you and say, "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer." Amen.