Reliving a Day: A Call to Radical “Here-ness” in the Present Moment

This past week, I sat in a Creative Writing class at my church as my friend Kristin taught us, giving us this prompt: 

“Reflect on a Day you’d want to re-live again. What made it meaningful? What would you do differently?”

At first, my mind turned to May 11, 2002. That was the day I stood before God and my closest friends to take the hand of my very best friend in marriage. It’s where my Jillian took my last name, and we vowed to love each other forever. I wondered what it would be like to stand before her again at the altar, in the full awareness of all of the intricacies of her heart I’ve come to discover and cherish over the past quarter century. Jill beamed on May 11…but the truth is that she radiates more brightly today. She really does. I am amazed as I watch her beauty and grace (her well-given middle name) continue to blossom onto new fields of this shared life together. I wouldn’t and I couldn’t trade the hard-fought character and dignity she’s allowed Jesus to cultivate in her through years of selflessness and surrender. Understanding this, I suppose I wouldn’t want to travel back there, even for a minute. Being here is better.

I thought for a moment about traveling even further back, to the time when Jill and I were still dating. There was this one troubling season of our love life when I must have been insane, because I was actually thinking of walking away. Perhaps I could step into that day to snap me out of whatever delusions or immaturity I was allowing to hold sway over my emotions. But it wasn’t “future me” I needed. It was the Holy Spirit who met me in my orphan-hearted brokenness, revealing that I didn’t know how to give my heart yet, because I was still the guardian of it. He was the One who enveloped me in His love, and who opened my eyes to the priceless treasure He’d given me in Jill. And that season — that refiner’s fire — though it was taxing and trying, is what formed the man who stands before my mirror today. I wouldn’t dare to shortcut any of it. 

As I sat in the writing class, my mind went to one other moment. I recently saw a scene of a bygone memory pop up in my camera feed. Jill and I had our five children, all under eight years of age, at a resort for a family vacation. We were in a massive pool with all of the slides and splash pads and giant buckets that released water every few minutes. Jill scanned the pool to see our oldest really working his newfound swimming skills, my second-born doing his best to get under the skin of his younger brother, and our twins tethered to us in those floating vests that made them both look like the Michelin Man.

Jill was so cheerful, but I just wasn’t having it. Even through the video screen, I could feel the weight of the world sitting on my (very white) shoulders. I’m willing to bet it was some mixture of concern for my non-swimming kids in all of this chaos, some annoyance for the ones that weren’t being cooperative, and some tension for something back at the church that hadn’t been resolved before I left for a week away. I wanted to transport and really see my kids and my wife in this precious moment that passed all too quickly; to race one of them up the steps of the water slide. To do a giant cannonball. To tell younger me that it was really all going to be okay. But, for all of the reasons I previously mentioned, I realized this prompt wasn’t inviting me to re-live some other day at all. 

I was being awakened to fully live in this day. 

We tend to do a whole lot of emotional time travel, either re-living some moment of bliss or brokenness in our past, or getting caught up in the worries and fears of somehow trying to pre-live some day that hasn’t happened yet. But today is the only day there’s any grace for. 

Today is the only day there’s any grace for. 

What could happen if, instead of wading into our past or trying to dive into our future, we could simply choose to bring our best selves to this present moment?

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

First of all, I find it kind of hilarious that this liberating verse comes, from all places, from the book of Lamentations. It’s a book full of poems of lament and loss about every past moment that had been missed, and yet EVEN HERE, the author feels compelled to lift his eyes above “that” day and to choose to live again in “this” one. That’s how ridiculously good our Good News is! 

So, let me ask you: “Where is God inviting you to live today?”

His mercy is new every morning. That means that God has already built in all of the kindness, grace, and strength for everything you presently need, and it’s waiting to be released at this exact moment if you’d only have eyes to see it. If I’m willing to be honest, most of my present heaviness is me trying to time travel back to the past and fix some mistake or misstep on my part or someone else’s. And all of my worry is me attempting to peer into the future of every negative potentiality, deluding myself that perhaps I can avoid it if I can just outthink it. 

But there’s no mercy in either of those places! The only thing the present and the past have any power to do is to remove you and from truly being here in the only day we get to live: today. 

If you think I’m being preachy, or heaven forbid, that I’ve got it figured out, let me reassure you. I am merely letting you join me in the running thread of my very present (and very imperfect) surrender at the feet of Jesus. This is more of a confession that I am welcoming any friends who’d have the guts to say, “that’s me too.” 

I tend to time travel too much, trying to relive the decisions of some past day or to somehow pre-live spaces that are not open to me yet. 

I’m learning slowly how to relinquish control, to let go of fear, and to courageously remind my soul that Jesus has been with me everywhere I’ve been and is already waiting wherever I’m headed.

More importantly, I am learning to delight in the new mercies Jesus keeps handing out, remembering that in this simple Gospel, He’s already saved the world. I am being invited to stop breaking under the weight of it and, perhaps, to start racing my fellow brothers and sisters up the water slides all around us to enjoy the wonder of being alive in this present moment. 

That’s where I’m at these days. How about you? Is anyone else ready to say goodbye to re-living and pre-living? Anyone else ready to LIVE today? 

A Prayer for Today…

Jesus, thank you for the gift of right now. You’ve been where I’ve been. You will be where I’m going. And right now, you’re with me. I give you the disappointments and every unfinished of yesterday. I surrender every “what if” that surrounds tomorrow.  I receive your peace. I believe your goodness. And I choose to trust you today. I receive the mercy to be fully, joyfully HERE!