This is a photograph of our family having dinner together one evening earlier this week. It was a happy occasion as you might be able to tell. The thing is, we didn’t plan to eat together that evening at all. In fact we weren’t due to be together on the same land mass as a family for quite some time. But that was before …
For most of us, if not everyone in our little corner of the globe, life has taken a very unexpected turn, and nothing right now is working out quite as we had envisaged. Even the most fundamental routines that we had taken for granted have become altered, some of them beyond recognition. It seems that changes and restrictions arrive on our doorstep every day, and we have no other choice than to fall in line and adjust. The suddenness and pace of it all can be deeply unsettling. I don’t think we saw it coming.
And yet, as we find ourselves in the middle of this strangeness, each day also seems to be bringing to us a new appreciation of the good things that we’ve been granted for years. We were so busy, perhaps, that we didn’t always take time to recognise their beauty. Here are some of these good things:
The bright warmth of sunlight on a window sill. The experience of kindness. The grace of music and of song. The value of a book. The vivacity of conversation. Precious friendship. Family. The joy of time spent together around a meal. The gift of another day. Steadfast love. Mercies new every morning. The great faithfulness of an unchanging God.
Now we know their beauty. And the knowing is a silver-lining blessing that we ought to be thankful for.
