The day

Over the weekend, I forgot to make the granola we have for breakfast during the week, so we went into Monday morning with scrambled eggs. Frozen bread into the toaster. An hour later, granola cooling for tomorrow, and the bread maker is grinding away behind me. We are so blessed to have choices. I pray for those whose empty larder in the morning means an empty stomach for the day. Make me generous today, Lord, with prayers and time and money.

This is the day the Lord has made. I was awake in the night, first with the anxieties that haunt most of us, but then the Lord helped me use the wakefulness creatively, inspiring ideas of how to revise a major character in a book I wrote years ago. I’m excited to get going on it.

This is not the day I had planned yesterday. But this is the day that the Lord has made, and I am going to rejoice in it. I have misgivings that I am up to the writing task, so as I read of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter this morning, I asked him to raise these characters in the book so that they speak truth and life.

This is the day the Lord has made. It is all I have. With his help, I will walk through it with him.

Intersections

Embrace the day and make the most of it.

Jamie arrived here yesterday bearing a gift from Mhairi, which she had schemed and planned for ages. Knowing our propensity for raising flags when we have visitors from various places in the world, she had a picture taken at Robbie’s wedding of our growing ‘immediate’ family, posing as if we were Victorians. Then she had it printed on a flag, ready for our next family gathering.

One or two faces look as if they might break into a laugh but by and large, we look suitably solemn and serious. And perhaps a bit mad.

It is priceless. With some family members living thousands of miles away, and my 90-year-old mother having flown from LA to Scotland for the wedding, I know that this complete a gathering may never happen again. 

And if it does, time will have altered our appearances. A little less hair; a few more wrinkles. 

Our roads have diverged, and our journeys are taking us in a variety of geographical directions, but our hearts are still entwined and our relationships are strong. In this day of instant electronic communication, there’s really no excuse to let distance separate us from those we love.

This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Wise words from Scripture. 

Each day is to be treasured for the moments of joy it holds.

May your day be filled with joyful moments. Look for them. And be thankful.

Keep focused

Every time I open up my blog or email account, I get an advertising band across the bottom with a gyrating torso showing the difference between a flat and a fat tummy, and how to achieve the most attractive results. I am a little paranoid of malicious attacks on my computer and am quick to close it down. But it annoys me.

Similarly, so often now when I go to make an on-line purchase, before my next chosen page opens I am shunted off to an on-line marketing questionnaire and promised if I answer a couple of simple questions, I’m in with a chance to win a new I-pad/phone. Again, with irritation I close the thing down, this time not so much agitated that I’m under malicious attack but that my privacy is being invaded and compromised.

It’s really hard to stay focused when so many interruptions conspire against it. One of my main reasons for resisting the temptation to open a Facebook account is that I will find my time compromised because I become distracted. Maybe that says more about me and my weakness than about any external interruption.

I don’t think I am unique though, and I believe that in this noisy, busy world, it takes determination and concentration to remain focused.

There’s a Christian song from a couple of decades ago with the lines, ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.’ 

Good, healthy advice.

St Paul advises that we fix our eyes on Jesus, who loves us, who prays for us, who longs for us to just slip aside into a lay-by and sit with him. It takes determination and self-discipline and practice to do this. 

I have been blessed by the benefits of doing it, yet even knowing that, I am still easily distracted. Sometimes I think the distractions may originate from a malicious source seeking to subvert my highest, but perhaps weak, desires to glorify God. But most of the time I think the distractions are simply there for their own purposes – to sell me something, or get me to sign up for something.

This is the day the Lord has made – rainy and windy as it is. I am deciding right now, before 9 am, to rejoice and be glad in it, to spend time focusing on Jesus and listening to hear that still small voice, to notice his loving presence in my life. To remain focused, undistracted.

How about you?