{"id":13223,"date":"2023-04-29T22:11:27","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T02:11:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13223"},"modified":"2025-08-17T16:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T20:21:07","slug":"creation-hymn-knowing-my-quirks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=13223","title":{"rendered":"Creation Hymn – Knowing my Quirks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This week my church small group is looking at Chapter 8 of my Psalms book — Creation Hymns. So again, I’m going to try to write one. Not a polished one, but just as a prayer, whatever comes out.<\/p>\n

Creation Hymns involve key concepts of God’s Glory, God’s Sustaining Care, God’s Knowledge, and Creation’s Joyful Response. And to make it read like a Psalm, I try for parallelism, repeating or emphasizing ideas in a second line.<\/p>\n

Usually when I try to pray a creation hymn, I think about the beauty of nature. The irises by my lake have begun to bloom! So I could pray about that.<\/p>\n

But this week, I’ve been thinking about Psalm 139, which begins:<\/p>\n

You have searched me, Lord,
\n and you know me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you’re not familiar with that Psalm, look it up! So many beautiful ways of expressing how deeply and thoroughly my Creator knows me.<\/p>\n

And this is comforting, because I’m still feeling stressed and inadequate.<\/p>\n

The leak from the unit above me that poured water into my home last week has been fixed. Water mitigation folks dried everything out with very loud fans.<\/p>\n

But my bathroom ceiling and bedroom wall still have big holes in them. The place doesn’t smell good — I hope just like the inside of walls and not mold. And it still hasn’t been settled how it all will be paid for. Surely it’s the responsibility of the owner of the unit above me, but he’s an offsite landlord and his property management company wants me to make a claim on my insurance. Surely my insurance will in turn go after them, because it’s well documented that the leak came from above. They also want their own people to make an estimate before they proceed with reconstruction, and I have a feeling it’s not going to happen before I go out of town in a couple weeks.<\/p>\n

But let me put in the psalm why I’m upset with myself. The title is from Psalm 103:<\/p>\n

You Know That I Am Dust<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have searched me, Lord,
\n and you know me.<\/p>\n

I know that you’re going to take care of me
\n and already have taken care of me.
\nI’m not going to have to pay for the damage,
\n and it’s relatively little damage
\nand I’m privileged to be a homeowner
\n and what’s a little inconvenience?
\nEspecially when my little niece
\n is suffering with relapsed leukemia.
\nSo how can I get stressed and tired and headachy
\n simply from a first-world problem like this?<\/p>\n

Lord, I keep thinking that trust
\n means we shouldn’t get upset.
\nBut you know me better than that.
\n You made me human.
\nInstead, may I turn to you when troubles happen
\n when parts of my home literally fall apart.
\nAnd maybe I need a little more sleep,
\n a little more leeway in my plans for getting things done.<\/p>\n

Why am I so much harder on myself
\n than you are?
\nAnd how did a problem in only one small part of my home
\n throw me for such a loop,
\n make me feel so vulnerable?<\/p>\n

But Lord, you know that you made me human,
\n not a robot.
\nYou know that my life is one-of-a-kind.
\n You gave me my unique quirks.
\nAnd yes, you gave me vulnerabilities,
\n not making me out of steel.
\nAnd they are not flaws,
\n but facets of your image.
\nAnd may I shine that image
\n more fully with every day that goes by.
\nAnd learn about trusting you,
\n turning to you,
\neven when my home falls apart,
\n even when I don’t know what to do.
\nBut may I start by acknowledging that
\n I don’t know what to do
\nand I’m feeling stressed
\n and extra tired
\nand I want my place of refuge back
\n and I want all the paperwork done.<\/p>\n

Thank you, Lord, for the world you’ve made,
\n and the ingenuity you’ve given folks
\nto build homes
\n and put them back together when they fall apart.
\nThank you that it could have been so much worse
\n and it wasn’t.
\nBut that it’s still okay to feel stressed,
\n and it reminds me to turn to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week my church small group is looking at Chapter 8 of my Psalms book — Creation Hymns. So again, I’m going to try to write one. Not a polished one, but just as a prayer, whatever comes out. Creation Hymns involve key concepts of God’s Glory, God’s Sustaining Care, God’s Knowledge, and Creation’s Joyful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creation-hymns","category-praying-with-the-psalmists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13225,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13223\/revisions\/13225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}