Lisa’s One Word Challenge for April:

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You don’t have to be an official poet or a priest to take this month’s suggestion to tap into your inner creativity and spirituality:

Find or create a poem, a prayer, or a blessing using your One Word.

POETRY

For poetry, google poems online with your word. Or create your own. Play by the rules and compose a haiku or assemble an acrostic. Or go rogue by experimenting with blackout poetry or writing free verse.

Here is a link to 11 types of poetry with examples for you to consider. Choose one or two to play with.

OR

PRAYERS AND BLESSINGS

You can adapt prayers recorded in the Bible or books special to you that relate to your word. Or choose to write a prayer from scratch. You also might try writing a blessing of thanksgiving or lovingkindness related to your One Word.

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I probably have not thought about this poem by William Wordsworth since I had to memorize it in elementary school. Even so, it seems to fit perfectly as Spring is trying hard to take hold of Chicagoland. The sunny faces of daffodils always fill me with hope.

The Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth, 1770 – 1850

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In my internet scrolling, I found:

“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” – Isaiah 40:30-31 NIV

Biblical Prayers for Renewal by Peter Armstrong

Spiritual Renewal – Prayers by David Beaty.

Sadly I also found some prosperity gospel websites that link spiritual renewal with earthly wealth. In my experience, it is in the times of greatest need that God does his best work in me. I will never be rich by the world’s standards, but day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, my Heavenly Father is doing a mighty work of renewal in me as I spend time with Him in prayer