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  • Keep Breathing
    • Keep Breathing: Introduction
    • Part 1
      • Stay Grounded
      • Keep Breathing
      • Gather Information
      • Feel What You Feel
      • Take in Support
      • Pray
      • Practice Surrender
      • Notice Your Reactivity
    • Part 2
      • Realize What Is Happening to You
        Is Happening To Everyone in Your Life
      • Take Inventory
      • Let Go of Shame
      • Extend Grace
      • Show Up
      • Learn Vulnerability
      • Make Amends
      • Stay Present in Times of Waiting
    • Part 3
      • Be Still and Keep Moving
      • Know You Are Not Alone
      • Ask for Healing
      • Seek Guidance
      • Meditate
      • Pursue Peace
      • Acknowledge Death
      • Grieve
    • Part 4
      • Express Gratitude
      • Stay Open to Joy
      • Make Room for Laughter
      • Celebrate Each Day
      • Let Yourself Be Carried
      • Be Who You Are
      • Know That You Are Loved
  • Desperate Hope
    • Shocked by the Diagnosis
    • Responding to Feelings of Fear, Anxiety, and Sadness
    • Ordering Desperate Hope
  • TLC Leader’s Manual
    • Group Leader Resources
      • Introduction to TLC
      • Meeting Format
      • Notes to Group Leaders
      • When a Group Member Dies
    • Strong Feelings
      • Understanding our Feelings
      • The Emotional Roller Coaster
      • Living With Fear
      • Dealing With Depression
      • Living with Anger
      • Grieving Our Losses
      • The Experience of Gratitude
      • Celebration and Joy
      • Experiencing Peace
      • Finding Hope
    • Challenges to Faith
      • Stretching Our Faith
      • Prayer
      • Examining Our View of God
      • Healing Prayer
      • The Lord Is With Us
      • God’s Healing Presence
    • Changing Perspectives
      • The Seasons Of Survival
      • Living Sanely in An Insane World
      • One Day At A Time
      • Positive Thinking
      • Accepting Our Need for Help
      • Building Friendships
      • Perspectives on Treatment
      • Coping With Pain
      • Repairing Our Self Esteem
  • Contact

Celebrate Each Day

This is the day that the Lord has made;
we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psalm 118:24

The kind of cancer I had was not life-threatening, but because of the diagnosis, I came to know more directly than ever before that I am not immune from catastrophic illness and death. With this refresher course in personal mortality came a heightened capacity to taste the sweetness of life.

Life is often hard. And mundane. But sometimes we are able to notice the gifts a day holds. Big gifts and little gifts. These moments of noticing and taking in the gifts of life can transform both the difficult and the mundane into experiences of grace.

When we are reminded that our days are numbered, there can be times when we are able to see the blessedness of life. We are able to see the amazing gift it is to be breathing, talking, walking here on earth.

I had a few such unexpected moments after being diagnosed. These moments had been described to me earlier by a good friend who is a cancer survivor as “moments of clarity.”

One day while I was walking from my office to a nearby restaurant for lunch, I felt like I stepped into a different dimension. Colors were suddenly more brilliant. The air felt magically charged. I felt stunningly alive. Moments of clarity like this did not last long or come often. But they were touchstones. They reminded me of how little we see and how little we know of the glories of this life and the life to come. These moments of clarity felt like moments of heaven on earth. Perhaps they are little glimpses of heaven. Perhaps they are glimpses of the presence of heaven here with us all the time. Whatever they are, they are gifts to be savored.

One of the impacts of these moments was that for several months after my experience with cancer I would wake up in the morning and look at the calendar hanging on our bedroom wall. As I looked at that day’s date, I would feel a wash of awe that I had been given the gift of this new day. Before I thought about what the day might hold or all I needed to attend to, I would first experience this gentle sensation pass through me. June 5. August 20. October 15. Whatever the day might be, I would look at the number on the calendar like I was looking at something that glimmered, something sacred, something filled with light and air and kindness, a personal gift beautifully wrapped, delivered at my doorstep.

I did not try to do this. It just happened. But the experience was so pleasant that I sometimes looked back at the calendar a second time, not to note the date again, but to feel that sense of blessed awe pour out on me and move through me one more time.

Sometimes celebrating each day may not look like much of a celebration. When we are physically ill or in emotional distress, just getting through the day, one day at a time may be all we can do.

The wisdom of living one day at a time is wisdom that Jesus taught. The Gospels record Jesus teaching us to trust God to provide for us each day. Jesus invites us to consider the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, how they do not toil, yet they have everything they need and more. He goes on to challenge us to consider if worrying can add one hour to our lives. Then he invites us to let go of all worry about tomorrow because we can trust that God who made us and values us will provide for us (Matthew 6:25-34).

Today is where we are. Today is what we have been given. Today we will be given the help and strength and grace we need for whatever the day brings. Life comes to us, a sweet gift, one day at a time.

When we are anxious and afraid, it is often because we are imagining difficulties that may arise the next day or the next week or the next year. When we find our minds time traveling in this way, we do well to come back to this moment, this day. We can trust that whatever comes our way tomorrow will come wrapped in the grace and strength we will need at the time. Today is the day we have been given, and in whatever way we can, we can honor the gift of today and even celebrate it.

Sometimes it helps to find simple ways to celebrate the gift of each day of life. Our celebration might be in the form of a prayer of gratitude for the day in the morning or in the evening, or both. Or it might be the celebration of standing and lifting our arms each morning in a gesture of receptivity. Or of lifting our voice in song. Or making music. Or expressing gratitude to the people in our life for the ordinary ways they bless us. Or lighting a candle and observing a moment of quiet awareness.

Each day is holy. Each day is a gift. May you find ways to celebrate.

When you don’t know what to do…celebrate each day.

Questions for reflection and discussion

1. What gifts have you noticed today?

2. What might help you celebrate the gift of each day?

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Keep Breathing

Keep Breathing by Juanita Ryan is available for purchase at amazon.com

Quote of the moment

"Some mornings when I am out walking I look up at the sky and it seems far away. On other days I realize that the sky kisses the earth. As I walk, I move through sky. I walk surrounded by sky. I breath in the sky. It lives inside of me. Whether the sky seems close or far away, the truth is that it is always close. And, so it is with God. God is the One in whom we “live and breathe and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God is with us. Always. God’s loving presence caresses us, surrounds us, fills us. I am not alone. You are not alone. God is with us. And God knows. You can trust this absolutely."
Juanita Ryan

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