Spring 2010

Wooing and forming God, I thank you for my EARLY CHRISTIAN FORMATION AND EDUCATION. For Christian parents, pastors and Sunday School teachers. For Aunts and cousins: Dot, Jean, Dottie, Mona, Florence, Susan. For teachers in the Fairfield, Ohio school system. For sight and taste and touch and hearing and smell. For reading and music. For J.B. Holloway who asked, “Have you ever thought about going to seminary?” For seeing Bob in the Map Room at SBTS and for marriage. For Frank Stagg and Wayne Oates. For my first silent retreat. For art education and learning about Bezalel and Oholiab. For all these people and influences, I praise you, O, God.

God of all comfort, I thank you for COMFORT IN SORROW. For your comforting presence during the deaths of parents and in-laws. For being there at the diagnosis of my son’s disabilities and through every hospitalization. For your care during Lew’s life and since Lew’s death. For being with him, closer than his breath, in every cell – not causing his suffering but suffering with him. For providing the Home of the Innocents and Kosair Children’s Hospital: For Sheila and Dr. Holmes and Dawn, Pattie and Debbie and Cindy Salvucci. For all this comfort and your supportive presence, I praise you, O, God.

Creator of all things both simple and grand, I thank you for large doses of the ENJOYMENT OF NORMALCY. For Judson’s health and enthusiasm for life. For the blessed experience of being “JaysMom” and for being a Band parent . I thank you for my other “children”: Kazuko and Jeanne and now for college students at the dawn of their lives. For all normal and typical things, I thank you, O, God.

God of Power and Blessing, I thank you especially for SPIRITUAL SUSTENANCE. For spiritual friends and guides: Craig, Rodney, Becky, Lorrie, Sister Kathleen, E.B., Don, Cam … For exposure to great preaching in many places at many times. For seminary education and chaplaincy training And especially for prayer. For all these spiritual blessings, I thank you, O, God.

Hard-working Creator God, I thank you for fulfilling EMPLOYMENT. For the opportunity to be Artist-In-Residence at the Federal Correctional Institution – and for not getting that first job at Asbury. Then later for teaching at Asbury College. For chaplaincy jobs at UK Medical Center and St. Francis Cabrini Hospital And now for work at Hospice Brazos Valley and Blinn College. For all the jobs I have had, I thank you.

Relational God, who reaches toward me and all human beings, I thank you for COMMUNITY. For family. For friends: Greta, Joan, my book club, Sister Kathleen, Peggy, Sunday School classes, Al-Anon friends and the Brazos Valley Emmaus Community. For church friends in Hamilton, Ohio And Lexington, Kentucky and Alexandria, Louisiana and Bryan/College Station, Texas. I am so grateful for finding old friends on the Internet And for Facebook so I don’t need to lose them again. For these and all other blessings, I praise and thank you, God, my Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.

Amen. – Cherry Winkle Moore

Alexandria Christ grace gratitude Judson Moore