The Rs Have It

The Rs Have It

You will show me the way of life,granting me the joy of your presenceand the pleasures of living with you forever.

Psalm 16:11

I sat with my friend Maria, planning the Sunday-morning worship service for the upcoming women’s retreat. Things seemed to be falling into place. However, the most bizarre thing kept happening. Words beginning with the letter r were finding their way into the conversation.

“Maria, do you see and hear what is going on here?” I asked.

“I guess I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied.

“We’re using a lot of words beginning with the letter r.”

We continued to discuss ideas, and “r words” continued to pop into the conversation. I began writing them down—words like repent, repeat, rut, road, righteousness, rejoice, and revelation.

“This is funny. Do you think maybe God wants us to use these words?” I asked.

The plan became to write one r word on a three-by-five-inch card for each woman attending the retreat. Then we would pray over the cards and randomly give each woman her r word on the first night.

Wow! One woman at the retreat actually wanted to leave because her word was too uncomfortable. But she decided to stay and later laughed at her initial reaction. God gave us joy with one letter from the alphabet.

After I returned home from the weekend, the r words raised their unruly heads one more time. At five o’clock Monday morning I woke up laughing. As I was giggling, my husband roused from sleep and said, “Are you all right?”

The laughing continued. “Go back to sleep, honey. I’m okay. I was just thinking of something that tickled me.”

But as he lay back down, my giggles continued. “I think I’m addicted to r words.”

—Mary Brawner

Abba Father, thank you for teaching me in simple ways to rejoice. Amen.