We said goodbye to a dear one
recently—one that had suffered greatly in her lifetime,
but somehow always managed to hold on to joy.
We never asked
her how she was doing that she didn’t quote the title of the 1970’s Kris
Kristofferson, Marijohn Wilkin song.
“One Day at
a Time,” she’d respond.
When the
song came out decades ago, the phrase, “One day at a time,” became cliché in
the culture, but as the years went on, its usage began to fade.
But for our
friend, it was never a cliché’—it’s how she lived. And I mean lived. Family
explained that as an infant she faced life-threatening challenges, but by the
grace of God, she survived. But her developmental process did not follow any expected
path, so the stage was set for lifelong issues.
She
responded to those issues by seizing each moment for joy and proclaiming Jesus
at every opportunity.
She was
adored by family and friends and left in her passing at close to ninety a
legacy of perseverance amid great difficulties and the memory of a smile that
would light up a room.
I was
reading this week the Exodus story of the feeding of the Israelites after they
had been delivered from Egypt. When the bread from heaven came down, they were instructed
to only gather enough for one day except for the sixth day when they would
gather enough for that day and the Sabbath.
The Israelites had
trouble trusting God with this direction. It was quite a learning
curve and not without derailments on their part. The reason for that is it
takes a great faith to believe God for the duration of one rotation of the earth.
But our friend had that kind of
faith. She believed through suffering that God would never let her down no
matter how many rotations of the earth her life encompassed.
I’ll never
hear the song, “One Day at a Time” or hear the phrase, that I don’t think of
her. I’ll remember that these are words God intended for us to live by and that you
can live an entire lifetime on them.
When troubles threaten to
overwhelm, let’s whisper this phrase in prayer, “One day at a time,” and
have the faith that God will grant us the grace to live them.
"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).
Beverly Varnado is the author of several small town romances from Anaiah Press including her latest, A Season for Everything. All are available at Amazon. A memoir, Faith in the Fashion District, from Crosslink Publishing is also available as well as her other books, Give My Love to the Chestnut Trees and Home to Currahee. She also has an Etsy Shop, Beverly Varnado Art.
To explore the web version of One Ringing Bell, please visit bev-oneringingbell.blogspot.com
Beverly Varnado copyright 2022