Each Day is a gift

"Each day is God's gift to you. 

What you do with it is your gift to Him."

                                                                     T.D. Jakes

One of my goals for this year is to live a more passionate, intentional life. It's not really in my nature to do that.  I find I spend too much of my time pining over the past and fretting about the future.  I want to learn to soak up the present; and breathe in these precious and fleeting moments.

I begin each morning with my journal in hand.  I start by writing down the things I am thankful for.   I also created a visual for myself, in order to remind myself how precious each day is….. I pretend that there is a knock at my front door.  I open it and find the Lord, standing there, and reaching out to me with a gift in His hands.  As I carefully unwrap it, I see rays of sun shooting through.  The gift He gives me is ‘today’....'one day'….'this day'.....  
 

My favorite way to celebrate my 'todays' is by taking walks through our citrus trees, into the neighbor’s alfalfa fields and along the canal banks. When I leave the house I'm reminded that our home has become a bird sanctuary. I often see our roadrunner policing the area and strutting his stuff. This time of year the Mexican Palo Verde trees are full of  little, yellow breasted finch, warblers and hummingbirds; all delicately fluttering about.  The feisty black and white mockingbirds are once again playing their 'king the mountain' game.

When I pass by our asparagus bushes, I usually scare up a rabbit.... the culprit of the bitten off tips of my asparagus spears.  Our century plant is in full bloom.  Did you know that once this desert agave bursts forth its blooms, it begins to die? I appreciate it and eye it more closely now.  
 

I brush through the lemon trees, and am surrounded by dozens of doves cooing out,  and grey sparrows busily building their nests. By the time I round the first corner I’m often greeted by the chubby little killdeer birds scampering along the ditch banks.  They make the funniest sounding little, pip squeaky cries while they anxiously pace along the ditch banks. 

It was especially beautiful a few days ago because the canals were full of rushing water.  The alfalfa was being irrigated and dozens of white herons, perched high atop the tree branches were swooping down to scoop up the insects. Occasionally a hawk will take part in this celebration as he scans for the mice and rabbits darting out from the rising irrigation water, looking for higher ground.  And some days when I’m very lucky, I might even see an osprey diving into the canal water and fishing out a carp.  It seems that for God’s creation, every day is an adventure; every day a celebration; every day a gift.

On today’s walk, I find only inches of standing water in the canal banks ….I stop to watch tiny minnows swimming in circles; as if they were children splashing around in the neighbor’s pond.  I see my shadow on the dirt path and stare up at the hot desert sun.  I look back down at the minnows in the quickly evaporating pools… I call out to them as though they could hear, ”You better enjoy this day, little ones, cuz it looks like that's all you got." 

 
And I am once again reminded....Each day is a gift….

After writing my blog, I came across this video and song written by Cathy Ellis and sung by Jill Switzer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0k24ZNXuaE