Hannah Prays

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made a vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening and there was morning -- the second day. (NIV Genesis 1:6-8) As a child, I spent countless hours looking up at the sky and the clouds that filled it. They were magical moments when the puffy white clouds took on shapes that filled the wondrous landscape of my imagination. I remember vividly laying there as slightly spiky, cool blades of grass poked at my neck and feet. As a young child, the sky ended and what lay beyond was Heaven. I had no idea that beyond the sky was an infinitely larger expanse of space even more wondrous than the very glimmer of it seen at night, when the sun winked out. But the childhood imaginings of Heaven just beyond the arc of the pale blue sky isn’t far from the truth of the scriptures. The scriptures intend for us to see t...

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw the light was good was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning -- the first day. (NIV Genesis 1:3-5) Each morning and evening I encounter this verse and must come to an ever-deepening understanding of its meaning. And these verses are rich with meaning. The first aspect to consider is God speaking—throughout the Bible God is speaking. This reminds us of his omnipresence in our lives and when we combine this with natural events like morning and evening, we encounter a visceral moment where God is near ongoingly speaking order out of chaos, maintaining the balance between light and darkness. This leads me to the next part, “let there be light”. This can easily be misunderstood as “sunlight” but the Sun does not get called into order until the 4th day. Instead this is God’s pervasive light—the light o...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2, NIV) Stepping outside with my dogs, wind swirled around me, gentle and cool—a perceptible reminder that Autumn was nearing. My dogs sniff around leaves that have already fallen, changed in color to a golden hue. Beneath our feet the uneven hard ground, softened by thick grass, spreads out before us. My dogs, like little cows or goats, nibble tips off the ends of the grass blades as they walk. The sky above me is azure intermittently marked by puffs of white-cotton clouds. The butterfly bushes I planted last year are in full bloom and surrounded by bees and butterflies. My marigolds have not fared quite as well having the buds chewed off by the resident groundhog who lives beneath our front porch. Thistles have sprung up in the tight spaces between all the plants in my garden just t...