One of those boxes which has been in my head for 23 years is the ‘except you become as a little child….’ one. Over the years I have dropped in bits of information or experience which help me to understand this. Reading ‘A Table in the Mist’ I think I have discovered another detail to drop into the box. We are exhorted to live today. Meaning don’t ‘live in the past’ (like so many WW2 veterans) or ‘live in the future’ (like so many idealists). We have to enjoy the things the Lord has given us TODAY. Whatever is our lot TODAY, let us live in it knowing there is meaning (and not wasting excessive energy on trying to DETECT that meaning). Surely this is the wisdom of children.

Let us deal with our children with this insight. TODAY they need a cuddle, story, encouragement, praise, congratulations – or correction, instruction, rebuke – what we do today will make a difference in the future. May all our conversations and actions TODAY be, in the Hands of Jehovah, small but important building blocks in building His Kingdom.

Come to think of it, I remember now that after having Victoria one of the things which troubled me was that the Lord really shortened my range of time-vision. If I could think about what was going to be for dinner TODAY that was really something. After Victoria’s surgery I recall commenting to others, in response to the questions regarding my well-being, that I felt for months that I could see ‘no further than the end of my nose’. Perhaps this is a good safety measure to keep us from going ‘over the top’ – if the things we have to deal with now are going to take SO MUCH energy , it is good if, for a while, we don’t get overloaded with tomorrow’s plans. I guess there are plenty of hedonists around who take pleasure in today without a thought for tomorrow but since WE know the Lord has ‘set eternity in the heart of man’ we can live today and still make our plans ‘D.V.’ with the very real awareness that we don’t know what a day may bring forth : but we do know the One who has planned it and He is GOOD.

So, today I am going to rejoice in my opportunity to make some nightshirts for the boys at the same time realising that demands for stories to be read, or cuddles to be afforded, may prevent me from completing any – though in the earnest hope that I MIGHT!