One More Day
I woke up this morning to the news that Senator Lindsey Graham had died.
Whatever you thought of his politics, there is something sobering about a man being fully present in the world one day and absent from it the next. He had just returned from overseas. He was working, traveling and making plans. There were almost certainly appointments on his calendar and conversations he expected to continue.
Then there weren’t.
It made me think about a question people sometimes ask:
What would you do if you knew you had only one more day?
I am beginning to think the question flatters us.
It allows us to imagine that advance notice would somehow produce a better version of ourselves. We would become more generous. We would make the call, settle the disagreement, loosen our grip on the things that never deserved so much of us.
But almost no one is told that today is the day.
The last morning usually looks like a morning. The coffee tastes the same. The bills are still due. The small aggravations still feel important. We speak to people as though there will be another conversation because, until there isn’t, that has always been true.
Our final day will probably not transform us.
It will find us.
It will find us somewhere in the middle of becoming whatever our habits have been making of us.
A patient person will likely still be patient. A bitter person may still be replaying an old argument. Someone who has learned to love well will not need the announcement of death to begin doing it.
We tend to believe character appears when the moment becomes important. More often, the important moment simply reveals what all the ordinary ones have produced.
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Perhaps numbering our days is not about living beneath the shadow of death. Perhaps it is about refusing to treat any day as disposable.
One more day may not be enough to rewrite a life.
But it is enough to reinforce one.
And sooner or later, one perfectly ordinary day will have the final word.
Share this with someone who may need the reminder that today is doing more than passing. It is shaping us.
#FirstLight #OneMoreDay #Faith #Wisdom #Life #Character #Purpose #Perspective