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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

One Day At A Time

Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love
we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:21-23

Cancer means that we can no longer pretend that we are immortal. Our mortality and human frailties become very real to us. We no longer assume that the future is ours. Each day becomes a gift of life. We learn to live one day at a time.

One of the reasons we do well to live one day at a time is because the fear of what the future might hold can overwhelm us. When we are in early stages of surviving cancer, we are especially vulnerable to experiencing a great deal of anxiety as we think about next month or next year or the next five years. We can become so focused on the “what ifs” about the future that we miss enjoying the gift of life today.

Jesus said “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34). Peter reminded us that we can “cast all our anxiety on him because he cares for us.”(I Peter 5:7) We can release our tomorrows into God’s tender care so that we can be free to fully embrace his gift of today.

It can be a helpful practice to begin each day with a simple prayer of thanksgiving for the gift of life today. This practice can help us to stay focused on the present and to live each day to its fullest.

It is also helpful to find other simple ways to embrace the gift of today. Saying “I love you” to family members, calling a friend, writing a note, taking a walk, noticing the beauty of God’s world around us are a few examples. John Claypool wrote about this in his book entitled Tracks of a Fellow Struggler:

Only when life is seen as a gift and received with the open hands of gratitude is it the joy God meant for it to be….The way of gratitude does not alleviate pain, but it somehow puts some light around the darkness and builds strength to begin to move on.

May you celebrate the gift of life today.


Questions for Discussion – Session 1

1. What worries and anxieties do you have about the future?

2. In what ways do these anxieties interfere with your ability to enjoy today?

3. What practical things can you do to live one day at a time?


Questions for Discussion – Session 2

1. What good things did you enjoy today?

2. What good things do you anticipate enjoying tomorrow?

3. What are you facing today that you need strength for?

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TLC Leader’s Manual

A photocopy-ready version of the TLC Leader's Manual is now available for download. If you are thinking about starting a Cancer Support Group, this might be helpful!

PDF version

MSWord version

Quote of the moment

"One of the things that we tend to dislike about our feelings is that they are not always rational. We feel things that don’t make logical sense to us. . . But our feelings do not go away simply because we try to dismiss them as irrational. On the contrary, the more we resist them because we don’t want to feel them, the more they seem to lay claim on our attention and our limited energy. "
Juanita Ryan

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