This is, of course, wheat I get for sitting up to midnight reading a book – my best laid plans for getting so much done in the early morning gone awry. But that’s what happens to us so often –trading one moment of pleasure for its consequences. Only trying to finish a book.
Trading one moment, one kind of activity for another, that’s how most of us live. But it’s so incredibly frustrating not to be able to be in control of our physical needs, like sleep. I remember when I could push through a day on less than five hours sleep and now I seem to need at least seven.
I tell myself that a rainy morning is the real cause of waking up after five or six, but it’s probably a sign of aging, something I resist. We all resist the limitations our bodies put on us. We look at older people who are infirm and wonder, “Will I ever be like that?’” ”No,” we say to ourselves, and hope for the best.
Prayer for the Day
Chafed by the limitations our bodies place on us, O God,
We long for the younger days of times gone by;
But in reality we know there is no return, so we plod on,
Seeking to be witnesses of your Gospel in our world
Be with us, O Lord, as we search for ways to care
Not just for ourselves but for others as you call us to do.
In the name of the One who is always with us,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.
Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
Do not deprive me of my age. I have earned it.
May Sarton, poet, from A Poet and the Donkey (1912-1995)
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
The Lord does not faint or grow weary; God’s understanding is unsearchable.
The Lord gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
They shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40: 28-31