Morning is broken – 6 July 2010

All the pieces of music about morning that I can think of are rather beautiful.  Morning from Peer Gynt (by Edvard Grieg) for example, is a piece that you will know, or at least have heard on a TV advert, but in case you don’t recognise it, here is a link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH1JMdWpJ54

Well, I have to say that my experience of mornings isn’t quite the same.  I don’t find mornings as beautiful as the music suggests.  It often seems to me that, during the week, no sooner have I said “goodnight” to my lovely wife, than I am hearing a beep, beep, beep, beep noise.  The alarm clock knows no pity and has no mercy.  Now, I am aware that many people reading this feel differently about mornings.  Some of you are morning people, but mornings are a little like Marmite.  You either like them or you don’t, and I am not at my best at 6.15 am.  I get up; I make the tea and take the breakfast up to my wife.  We eat together in our bed, commit the day to the Lord and get up.  The Lord does not feel close, and all of the challenges of the up and coming day are spread before me.

When I was a child, I went to Sunday School.  My parents and grandmother ran it. The song that I remember most clearly singing along to as it played in the church hall on a reel to reel tape machine was called ‘The steadfast love of the Lord’.  It comes from Lamentations 3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsf3CM2Cxas&feature=related

It is fair to say that Jeremiah was not in the happiest place or state of mind when he wrote about Jerusalem’s destruction and his peoples’ desolation.  I am sure that he had much better reasons than I do for not wanting the day to start!  However, I do find it helpful to know that just as sure as the morning will follow a very short night, and just as sure as the alarm clock will start within a nanosecond of the light going out, just as sure is the Lord’s mercy and faithfulness, every day. God is merciful and faithful to us, even in the mornings.