Thought for the Week: The present
Trish Carn reflects on the blessing of each new day
All presents don’t arrive wrapped in pretty paper tied up with ribbon. Some come stealthily in the night. This is the way my most frequently received presents arrive. I awake and find the gift of a new day, sometimes wrapped in the pink and orangey hues of dawn. At other times it arrives wrapped in the velvet darkness of a star-studded sky. A present of the present.
For me, each new day is a blessing – a tabula rasa – a clean sheet for me to fill.
There are a full 1,440 minutes to use as I wish. Even allowing for 480 minutes used up in sleep, and about another 180 used in preparing food and eating, I am left with 780 minutes to use as I will – seventy-seven hours over the week. Yes, there are other responsibilities, but they are my choices. I chose to continue working and to care for my home. So, some of those precious minutes are taken.
It is a new start – a chance to begin again. My ‘to-do list’ may carry forward, but yesterday is gone and with it any failures – large or small.
The present is the only time I have. I can’t hold onto the past – it has vanished.
I can dream of the future and what it might bring – good or bad – but why worry about problems when that worry is often fruitless? The time I have is better spent concentrating on the present and doing my best at whatever I am doing – trying to do it prayerfully and with attention.
In the King James’ version of the Bible there is a reminder in Matthew 6:34. It tells: ‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ There is both an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation of these words. I choose the optimistic one, which is essentially carpe diem: live each day to its fullest because no one knows what will happen tomorrow.
When the Israelites were escaping from Egypt they were fed daily by manna and quails. Matthew Henry’s commentary on Exodus 16 tells us that: ‘The manna fell only six days in the week, and in double quantity on the sixth day; it bred worms and became offensive if kept more than one day, excepting on the sabbath. The people had never seen it before. It could be ground in a mill, or beaten in a mortar, and was then made into cakes and baked.’ This verse prompts us to trust today.
Each day is precious. It is a present and might not be given tomorrow.
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