The Proper Amount of Days to Live at a Time

Lovies, they call them, and I think one of them is named Frank, the duck. She can hold seven of them at one time, even though her little arms are only one year old.

Mom and I sit quietly in the bedroom. Somehow she finds a way to tuck in her 45-year-old daughter –grabbing the covers and pulling them up over me just like when I was seven and used to talk at her until the very second she closed the door for the night.

We look at dad’s antacids by the bed and laugh hard at a pair of threadbare long johns she pulls from the drawer. Dad just kept stitching them back together, but it seemed there were more stitches than johns.

And we wonder together how she is going to live through summer chores and hunting season and Christmas without him.

We find ourselves pulling the future into our arms like Miss Emma insists on carrying her lovies.

Too much for such small arms.

Mom, we’re going to have to discipline ourselves to only live one day at a time. Wake up. Do the work of this one day in front of us. Seek God in it. 

Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.  –Corrie Ten Boom

I have to tell myself the same advice I give my mom –only carry today’s wedding chores, today’s three hours of teaching, today’s grief.

So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  (Matthew 6:34 NASB)

What future burden do you need to stop trying to carry?