During the past months of lockdown and restrictions on our freedom to move about, to BE visitors and to receive visitors, it would not be surprising if we had found it hard to rejoice in the day that lay before us.
And yet that is just what the verse from Psalm 118 urges us to do:
“This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.”
A prayer from the Morning Office encourages similar thinking…..
‘The night has passed and the day lies open before us……
As we rejoice in the gift of this new day, so may the light of Your presence, O God,
Set our hearts on fire with love for You, now and forever.’
How much better to be positive at the beginning of a new day.
How much better for our mental health and well being.
Perhaps the most poignant nudge to us towards this positive thinking, no matter what is happening around us, is a poem written by Martha, a 10 year old girl living under the restrictions of the Warsaw Ghetto and who ultimately perished in the Holocaust.
She writes:
From tomorrow on I shall be sad…..from tomorrow on.
Not today, no! Today I will be glad.
And every day, no matter how bitter it may be, I will say:
From tomorrow on I shall be sad, not today!
Who can say that, as a Jewish child growing up with the Psalms, that she was not inspired by the verse from Psalm 118?
May we be inspired in the same way.
Joan Grenfell. (Anna Chaplain).