Father’s Day and Mother’s Day always seems to bring out the messages about regrets for not having said more to parents or spent more time with them while they where here. In today’s post to his blog, Jack’s Winning Words, Pastor Freed used this quote from Gene Autry – “If God would but grant me the power to turn back the pages of time.” He wrote about his own father’s death at a relatively early age and how he missed having his dad there for many milestones in his life.
But, that’s not how life works. God doesn’t grant us either the power to turn back time or to look into the future. The past cannot be changed and worrying about the future seems to be a waste of time; and, time is all that we really have. So, perhaps, instead of asking God to intervene in either the past or the future we should instead ask for his help with the here and now. Maybe a simple prayer like, “God, help me make good decisions today” would make today better. At least you would be praying for something reasonable.
As a precursor to that request for God’s help you might put yourself in the right frame of mind by using the little prayer that I post here quite often – “not my will but thy will be done”. That simple line relieves you of feeling responsible for the past and the future and puts you back in charge of just being responsible for how you act and react in the here and now. Then you can ask for God’s help in making good decisions as the day unfolds. Maybe, as Pastor Freed related, one of those decisions will be to call your mom or dad and just tell them that you love them.
Recently the slang word “woke” has been used in politics and other settings to describe what Webster’s Dictionary says is a state of being “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues”. It has been especially attached to the Black Lives Matter movement to indicate an awareness of pervasive racism in our society; however, the term maybe applied to life in general.
Living for today isn’t about forgetting what has happened in the past or not thinking and planning for the future. It is about being more mindful and focused upon what is happening now – being woke. Once you become more focused upon the here and now you soon realize all that you have been missing going on all around you. You may even gain an understanding or that old phrase, “stop and smell the flowers”, once you realize that there are flowers, opportunities, and interesting people all around you. Wake up!
Try it. You might like it.
Live for today.
NormsMilfordBlog 
Just because the past canât be changed DOESNâT MEAN THAT THE REGRETS FADE AWAY.