Dear One,
How do you live with something? A debilitation, a diagnosis, a disease. A situation or circumstance that’s difficult day in and day out? How do you deal? How do you live with it? In it? Through it?
A new friend of mine wanted to know. How do you do it? she asked me.
How indeed? I pondered. I prayed. I wondered if I had anything of value to tell her. And then I remembered: Each day, enough.
Jesus was in the middle of his longest recorded public talk when he started in on the theme of worry. After addressing the basic daily needs of his listener’s (food & clothing), he moved from their todays into their tomorrows:
“Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself,” he said. “Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Matthew 6:34
Jesus, ever the realist.
Each day, enough, he said. Can I get an amen?
I’ve had a week, friend. One of those weeks. The each-day-more-than-enough kind. I’ve needed these words I’m sending your way.
As if today isn’t trouble enough, I have a tendency to make the hard even harder by dragging my yesterdays in. Piling them on, I’m pressed down by the accumulated weight of their griefs & grievances, troubles & trials, faults & failures.
This causes me to wake up already weighed down. It’s like starting my day in a deficit and I don’t recommend it.
Then, just for good measure (because, why not?), I add my tomorrows to the mix. I borrow the burdens of the future through practices of what-if’s and worries.
Trust me, none of this is helpful.
So I have this mantra I made up, which is what I was reminded of by my friend’s question. And it goes like this:
Don’t borrow from tomorrow,
Don’t stay in yesterday,
Each day, enough.
Freshly reminded of that, I sat in the dark quiet with God this morning and tried to live out these words. Tried to release the yesterdays and the years to come. But friend, they clung to me. So when that didn’t work, I stretched my arms out and, like a child struggling to get out of a shirt they’re all tangled up in, I asked for help to remove what I could not release.
I told God I didn’t want to store up the hardships or hurts. Would He please help me out?
After releasing (or being released), I paused to receive. I kept my hands open with a prayer on my lips, because friend, it’s not just the problems that are each day, enough(praise be!). The provisions are as well.
And their names are mercy and manna.
We’re told in Lamentations 3:22-23 that “the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.”
God’s mercies, tender-kindness, love and compassion are new every morning and each day, enough.
And God’s manna is this as well. Our daily bread. That which sustains us through the demands of our days is new every morning and each day, enough.
And that, friend, is how I do it. That’s how I live with, live in, and live through all the things. I return, time and again, to each day, enough. To release and receive. To the God who gives and takes away. It’s the only way I know how.
Each Day, Enough: Our Little Life Words of the week.
DEEPER DIVE
Ponder:
- In what ways do you borrow from tomorrow or stay in yesterday?
Practice:
- Read this Liturgy for Morning Coffee each morning this week (even if you’re a tea-drinker like me😉). It’s a lovely way to release and receive.
- Some practical helps, especially for releasing, are:
- Yoga: try Yoga with Adrienne, it’s free!
- Deep Breathing: this book is a storehouse of ways to practice.
- Mindfulness Meditations: consider the CALM app.
Play:
- Our song of the week is: Everything by Lauren Daigle.
Pray:
- God, release me from my fear of the future and my focus on the past. Give me this day my daily bread, mercy and manna, both.