VICAR
Dear Readers of Country Squire Magazine, I trust this Sunday finds you in good heart, perhaps with the last of the morning mist burning off the fields and a pot of something strong brewing in the kitchen. There is a particular blessing to a late spring Sunday, isn’t there? The hedgerows are frothing with cow parsley, the swallows have returned to the barn, and the world feels as though it has finally shaken off the last chill of winter. It is a day that invites us to look up from our lists and simply notice.
And yet, for all the beauty around us, I find that gratitude does not always come easily. We are skilled, aren’t we, at noticing what is wrong? The fence post that needs replacing. The ache in the lower back. The news from distant places that troubles the soul. But to notice what is right, what is given, what is simply and freely ours—that is a different kind of seeing. It is a discipline. It is, I have come to believe, a form of holiness.
The countryside is a masterclass in ordinary grace. The sun rises whether we thank it or not. The seed sprouts without our applause. The blackbird sings his heart out from the same branch morning after morning, asking nothing of us but to listen. This week, I invite you to join me in a prayer of gratitude. Not for the grand and the spectacular, but for the small, faithful gifts that surround us each day—the ones we so easily overlook.
Dear Lord, we come to You this Sunday with hands that are often quicker to reach for what we lack than to hold what we have been given. Forgive us our complaining hearts. Forgive us the hours we have spent fretting over small disappointments while great blessings sat unnoticed at our table. Open our eyes, we pray, to the ordinary grace that carpets our days like wildflowers in a meadow. We thank You for the gift of this spring morning. For the warmth of the sun on our shoulders, for the song of the birds that ask nothing of us but to listen, for the sight of fresh green breaking from every branch and hedgerow. These are not accidents, Lord, but gifts. Freely given. Abundantly offered. We thank You for the faithful rhythms of the countryside. For the farmer who rises early, year after year, trusting that seed and soil will do their work. For the livestock that ask nothing but to be fed and sheltered. For the garden that offers up its bounty in its own good time. Teach us to live in that same rhythm of trust. We thank You for the small pleasures of this Sunday. For the taste of fresh bread and good butter. For the comfort of a well-worn chair by the window. For the face of the one who sits across from us at the table, familiar and beloved. We so often rush past these moments, Lord, already thinking of the next task, the next worry. Slow us down. Plant us in the present. Help us to taste our lives while they are still warm. We thank You for the hard things too, for they have shaped us. For the winters that taught us patience. For the storms that showed us what we are made of. For the losses that opened our hearts to the preciousness of what remains. We do not thank You for pain, Lord, but we thank You that You have never left us alone in it. We pray for those who struggle to find gratitude this morning. For the grieving, for the anxious, for the exhausted, for those whose fields have failed and whose hearts are heavy. We cannot ask them to give thanks for their burdens. But we ask that You would visit them with a small gift today—a kind word, a moment of unexpected beauty, a hand to hold. Let that be the seed from which gratitude may one day grow. And finally, Lord, we thank You for this day of rest. For the permission to set down our loads and simply be. As we move into the week ahead, let gratitude become not an occasional duty but our first language. Let us wake each morning looking for the gift, and let us end each day naming at least one thing that was good. For You have surrounded us with mercies. Help us to see them. Amen.
God Bless You All.
May this Sunday find you noticing the small graces that litter your path like fallen blossom. Why not take a piece of paper before the day is out and write down three things you are grateful for—not grand things, but simple ones: the warmth of the sun, the taste of the tea, the sound of a loved one’s voice? It is a small discipline, but it changes everything.