When my oldest son was in preaching school, and actually I saw this happening while he was in high school, he had his foot on the pedal of life and was always in hurry.  I would tell him, “Slow down.  While you are eager to get to one place, as soon as you are there, you want to be in another place.  You don’t enjoy the moments given you by God.”

I find this to be true with all of us.  We don’t focus on the many moments given to us throughout our day.  Everyone I know wants to be focused on and not passed over.  I think of this every morning as I arrive at school.  A door is opened by a child and they tell me “Good morning.” “Have a nice day.”  During these fleeting moments we fail to think of what they are doing.  They are learning to put themselves aside and think of others.  So as I go through the door, I tell them thank you and for them to have a nice day as well.  Little moments certainly turn out in later life to be the bigger moments without our realizing it.  The moments we found the most joy.

One little girl has a ritual every day.  She gives me two hugs and sometimes three.  She tells me she loves me.  What could be more important than those precious moments during the day which make our hearts smile and our day much brighter?  And then there is a little boy who is always tugging at my shoulder to pay attention to him.  Though he can’t speak but few words, I understand and carry on a conversation with him.

At times when we are home we are trying to solve the problems at the office and while at the office we are focused on problems at home.  I’m quite sure we all can identify.  And then as the day progresses we don’t focus on what others are saying to us.  We hear the words, but we don’t really focus on what they were saying.

It is this.  We are so focused on tomorrow we don’t focus on this day.  We never notice that today is slipping by.  We go through the day without actually getting something from those little moments.  We are as my son was then, everywhere at any given moment in time and never living in the moment itself.

“Just for today, I will not worry
Just for today, I will not be angry.
Just for today, I will be kind to every living thing.
Just for today, I will be thankful for all my blessings.
Just for today, I will do my work honestly.
Just for today, I will be compassionate and forgiving.
Just for today, I will find joy in even the smallest of life’s gifts.
Just for today, I will feel at peace.”      ~ Usui

Life is taking the time to hear children, view a sunrise, a sunset, listening to your heart, watching the leaves change color in the fall, watching them fall while enjoying the moment, focusing on our loved ones and friends, meditating and becoming more grateful to God for what we have in the place of what we don’t have.  Enjoying all of His bountiful blessings and all of those beautiful moments we think are not important, but in fact are.

“For His anger endureth but a moment; in His favour is life:  weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.     (Psalms 30:5)

Our Lord gave us 21st century medicine regarding these moments, and after all, we can only live in one moment at a time.

“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.”     (Matthew 6:34)

“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”    (Psalms 118:24)

“Look to this day!  For it is life, the very life of life.  In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth;  The glory of action; The splendor of achievement;  For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision;  But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.  Look well therefore to this day.”          ~ Proverb

Eileen Light