People and Things We Can Count on Every Day
One day last week I again ran into a longtime acquaintance. As always I saw her weariness as she continues her years of lovingly caring for her husband. Her nights are long. Her days are long.
As we chatted this time, her face brightened when she described the visits she and her husband make every evening to see her son and his family. With a huge smile, she demonstrated how her young grandson immediately reaches for her each time with wiggling fingers. Every night grandma and grandson take the same special walk together, and both find joy in the other. Each experiences precious moments with someone special he and she can count on every day. Both know exactly what to expect. Both find comfort in their daily ritual.
Surprises are fun. Life is better with lots of them. Still, we human beings—young and old—need consistent daily blessings, too. We need people we can count on every day. We need order and routine. Children need these and grandparents need these. Husbands and wives and mamas and daddies do, too.
A friend who lives alone told me recently that her daughter has a quick Facetime with her every morning. With a smile she said, “I realized she’s checking on me. Of course, we talk several times throughout the day, but she’s making sure I’m okay.” My friend’s daughter is not only reassuring herself that her mother is fine. She is helping her mother know every day how much she loves her.
Our lives can become very busy and sometimes even chaotic. It’s important to make sure that our children and the other people God has given us to love have some things they can always count on being the same.
Our Father in heaven created the world with order and routine. We don’t have to worry whether day will follow night or night will follow day. They always do and we live in that daily assurance and comfort. God said:
“While the earth remains,
Seedtime and harvest,
And cold and heat,
And summer and winter,
And day and night
Shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:22
Our Father and His Son Jesus Christ are the perfect examples of Ones we can count on.
Jesus Christ is the same
yesterday and today and forever.
Hebrews 13:8
Every good thing given
and every perfect gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of lights,
with whom there is no variation
or shifting shadow.
James 1:17
God wants us to be consistent, too:
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
1 Corinthians 15:58