Today if you hear His voice ..

I have a fern frond from our trip to New Bern, I think it was last fall. Could it have been just that short of a time ago? Golly, how life as changed. It was Don and I, Erin and Ethan, Benjamin and Elisa (and missing other folks the whole time) on that trip. Lovely time. Bittersweet now, but at the time I fully embraced it.
I kind of, stole, the frond from the beautiful garden we went to - it was my souvenir.
I had intentions of putting into my scrapbook. It's on my bulletin board now, waiting.
I look at it quite often cause 1. I love plants 2. it brings back a sweet memory.
The point of my post is that the frond is losing it's color. It's no longer the beautiful green it was when I picked it. It's fading. Just like the memory of our trip. A week after the trip I could have given you a lot of details but now, many of the details are gone and just images in my mind remain. I look at the pictures and am reminded of our warm, happy trip. I am sad the frond is fading, I wish I had stored it so it would still be nice but instead I have enjoyed it all these months. And as a result it is fading. Well, I'm sure you can all tell where I'm going with this. Our lives and our days are like the frond. Fading. I thought about that and I was sad. I felt such a loss. But being the daughter of the Creator of the universe I get to have eternal perspectives as well as practical ones for the here and now. So, my faded fern frond represents our days gone by but as I look at that frond on my bulleten board I only have to turn my head just a bit to see the beautiful leaves and garden the Lord is displaying today.
Today the Lord has made a whole new day to be enjoyed. I see the beautiful leaves on our trees. The colors are magnificent - just like their Creator. Every day, there is new life. Every day the Lord is here with us. Loving and leading us. Ever so patient with us redeemed sinners. Blessing us with answers to prayers and provisions. The manna the Lord provided only lasted one day.

Give us this day, our daily bread.

I guess that is where the Lord lives. This day.
I know He will be there for me tomorrow. And I know He was with me yesterday but it's in today that I experience His life changing grace.

Does that mean I'm not sad about my frond? No, I'm sad about it. I'm sad that happy time is gone. I wish I was there again I would freeze it and never let it end but it's not to be. That time has past - but outside ... there is new life today. New souls that need love. So today I will see what the Lord has done.  And only by His grace will I look and see His goodness and be blessed and fed - my daily manna.

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts .... But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

  Hebrews 3