On the Shelf

When my father found out what the prompt was today he said it should have been “on the table” as in operating table, as I was being operated on during that day. I had been in hospital a few days before and I had looked around my hospital room and there it was - a shelf, high on the wall. There was nothing on it. It was empty. I realised that its purpose was to hold vases of flowers that were brought in for patients.

As I contemplated its empty starkness days later I thought about all the unseen gifts that I would like to put up there. The gifts of gratitude, thankfulness to the staff for their care of me, gratefulness to the kitchen staff for suppling food that I could eat and appreciation for the way that the doctors had almost certainly saved my life. These are gifts that have no tangible form; they can be expressed in words only, written on a card and said out loud.

I am reminded of the person who could be listed as possibly the most grateful person in history, David, the psalmist. How many Psalms do we read where he starts off deep in sadness, depression or weariness and by the end has found a new thankfulness for what God has done for him? Sometimes he just praised his God from beginning to end.

Psalm 105:1 "Oh give thanks to the Lord; call upon his name; make known his deeds among the peoples!"

Psalm 106:1 "Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!"

Psalm 107:1 "Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!"

Yes the shelf looks empty but it is filled with the gifts that I have mentioned and they not only fill the shelf but the whole room.