November 22nd

This is the Day that the Lord has Made

             The Lord is my strength and my might; he has become my salvation. There are glad songs of victory in the tents of the righteous: “The right hand of the Lord does valiantly; the right hand of the Lord is exalted; the right hand of the Lord does valiantly.”

            I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord. The Lord has punished me severely, but he did not give me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.  This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter through it.   I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.  The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.  This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.  This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:14-24

             Welcome to another day.

            It may look and feel just like yesterday, but this one has something special about it:  God made this one.  He made the sun to rise and the earth to turn.  He woke you up today because He has something very important for you to do specifically during this day.  He has been pouring creativity and patience and hope and grace into you since the end of yesterday because He knows that today is full of challenges and obstacles and roadblocks and He wanted to make sure that you had everything that you needed in order to seize this particular day.

            Today’s challenges may look a lot like yesterday’s…but that means that you know how to deal with them or, at least, yesterday taught you how to not deal with them so you can try something different today.  Today’s challenges probably involve your child…most days do.  God created this very day so that you can have some extra time to work through their current dilemma.

            One of the challenges that you will face today is the fact that your child does not really fit into this world.  By extension, you do not really fit into this world and that can be a hard reality to live in.  But if it is any consolation, I know that it is to me, the passage above describes that Jesus did not really fit in either.  He was the stone that the builders did not know what to do with.  So they threw it away when, really, He was the perfect piece to anchor their project.  That is often true for our kids as well.  The world does not know that its ignorance is leading it to discard exactly what it needs.  There is confusion and anger and grief and bitterness that can pop up with us when that happens, but that is not for now.  That is not for today.

            Today…today it is time to rejoice.  It is time to be filled with joy because God has made this day for you and for your child.  Today is a gift that God has placed at your feet and invited you to unwrap.  Today is a day to savor the good things of life and overcome the things that are hard.  Today is a day to use the strength and compassion and creativity and wisdom that you have cultivated over the years to solve problems that you did not used to be able to solve and to do things that you did not used to be able to do.

            Today is good.

A moment to reflect:

How could today be good?