A Bright New Day

Before I begin, I want to thank everyone who sent me encouraging messages and texts in response to my post yesterday. Especially my Gramma Barb, My Auntie Lisa, and a friend from way back when, dare I say high school, Melanie. Your words were all kind, encouraging, and reassuring.

So, yesterday, as you could tell if you ready my post, was a pretty awful day. It's funny how God knows us. Every part of us, even our frustrations and hurts. He responds by providing little glimpses of hope and beauty. Sends events our way to help us get over the little bumps in the road, or even better, the words of great people, speaking into our lives. Today dawned a bright new day, in many ways. First of all, the sun was shining all day, with a nice breeze. I love days like this. Its almost like the warmth of the sun touches our souls, and the breeze is like God whispering to us. I love the outdoors, and days like today remind me why. Aside from that, things went fantastic today. I said in yesterday's post that it seems none of us, (me, my wife, my kids) have been working together as a team. Today I got a glimpse of how that really works. Between Emily helping me with getting the tiles cut for the floor project, and JB helping me last night, we got the tiles in, and it looks great. I really appreciated JB's help, especially because it was unsolicited. I didn't have to ask him, he just started helping. My father in law was coming over today to drop off a ladder for me to fix the gutters, and ended up staying for over an hour. He helped me adjust the garage door, which has been a thorn in my side since we put it in over the summer. We talked alot too, which was cool. We don't have many times like that. He asked about my father, and how he was dealing with all of this. It reminded me just how many people actually do care, and are pulling for him. I had a meeting with some great guys from church, ate dinner with the family, and watched some of the yankees game on tv. My wife gave me a kiss and said thank you for all I have been doing around the house. That meant alot to me. I took my practice test for my dialysis certification, and got an 84. All simple, run of the mill things, but that's what I needed today. Simple things to go right. Later in the evening, I went to sit outside and do some reading. I hear Emma at the front door yelling "Daddy, Daddy", so I went to see what she wanted, and she just wanted to come outside and sit with me. As we were sitting on the swing, her curling her little body up in my side, she noticed the moon in the sky. She said all excited " what's that", with her cute little gasp. I said the moon. She followed it up with "pretty moon". After a few seconds of silence, she said "I love you". We just sat on the swing for a little while, cuddling up, enjoying each other's company. It was a perfect ending to a great day.

The whole day reminded me that each day, we are given a clean slate. Each day is a brand new canvas, to paint on it what we want. Each day, regardless of how we mess up, or respond to struggles, God gives us new mercy, for a new day. It also helped me realize that once a day is done, its done. We can choose to carry all of our junk, stress, hurt, frustration, anger, etc... into the next day, but if we always do that, we may miss the chance to enjoy a bright new day.