Taking the Scenic Route

Let’s open our hearts in prayer. Gracious and loving God your son taught us that your kingdom is among us. Yet so often we treat life as something to be gotten through instead of something to be embraced and to be cherished. We look ahead to the end of the work day, to the week-end, to the summer vacation, to retirement, and we forget that the only time we will ever have is now. Open our eyes and open our hearts so we know that we cannot collect the moments we waste and store them for future use, and we cannot hide our love away, protecting it, thinking the ideal time will someday arrive when we can reach into that vast reservoir of love we have saved up and joyfully pour it upon the world. Tomorrow may never come and we cannot relive a single wasted yesterday. Today is all we will ever have. Grant us the wisdom to understand that now is the time to embrace the fragile beauty of life and now is the only time we will ever have to love the people you have placed beside us for this mysterious and beautiful journey. — Gary Cox, pastorial prayer, after his terminal cancer diagnosis.