“Listen to this, Job: Stop and consider God’s wonders.”     (Job 37:14)

Ambitious birders do Big Days. Over a 24-hour period, they compile a long list of bird species seen as they traverse a carefully planned itinerary of birding hot spots. Other birders do Big Sits. They list bird species seen from a lawn chair at a single location over a few hours.

I recently did a Big Sit of Thankfulness at Irvine Regional Park near my home. I sat for an hour and considered the wonders and blessings of God evident at that one spot. Here’s my list:
 
1.  A Big Sit list must include birds! Thank You, Lord, for red-shouldered hawks, ravens, acorn woodpeckers, Nuttall’s woodpeckers, scrub jays, oak titmice, darling starlings, Western bluebirds, black phoebes, Oregon juncos, California towhees, spotted towhees.
 
2.  Lord, thank You for trees – for the sycamores with their desert camouflage bark, the sprawling centuries-old coastal live oaks, the cottonwoods with their nervous leaves constantly aflutter.
 
3.  I praise You, Lord, for Your infinite creativity. You didn’t create just one type of tree or one species of bird per habitat. The variety of Your creation is endlessly interesting. It reminds me how varied Your human creations are too. You didn’t use cookie cutters to make us, and You didn’t set us on identical paths through life.
 
4.  Thank You for color. I see dozens of shades of green, yellows and golds tinged with orange, every earth tone, a dab of pale pink.
 
5.  Saplings growing from a half-uprooted derelict stump speak of irrepressible life, of which You are Author. You are the only source of life and hope.
 
6.  Thank You for the health and mobility that enable me to come out to the park. I know enough elderly or ill people to realize I shouldn’t take that for granted.
 
7.  Thank You for giving human beings the ability to cooperate, to work together, to set aside land and manage it as a park.
 
8.  I give You thanks for perhaps the strongest form of human love – maternal love – as I watch a mother, chattering in Chinese, push her toddler son on a swing.
 
9.  The sun was rising behind the eastern hills when I walked here early this morning. Now it is past its zenith, heading west. The sun traces this course every day without fail. Thank You for the reliability of the natural laws You put in place to govern this world, a testimony to Your faithfulness.
 
10.  Thank You that I have a home to go back to. I don’t have to find a place to sleep, hidden from human or animal predators, before the sun goes down or dread the cold of night.
 
Take time this week for your own Big Sit of Thankfulness at a park near you, at home, even in front of the Bears-Packers game on Thursday night. Stop and consider the wonders and blessings of God, and thank Him.
 
Wishing you and yours a deeply meaningful Thanksgiving!

In Christ,
Carol Gilbert, Prayer Chair
Calvary Community Church of Brea