This is the Day the Lord Has Made

Caitrin Bennett reflects on a favorite psalm, focusing on the mercy each day brings.

The Best-Laid Plans

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice in it and be glad. (Psalm 118:24)

Psalm 118 is chock-full of amazing lines, but recently this phrase in verse 24 has especially been on my mind.

As a mildly neurotic Type-A planner, I generally map out my day in my mind each morning. This helps me feel calmer and more in control. However, my days rarely follow the plans I have laid for them very well. Things can be derailed by my children, traffic, startling news, my children, illness, other people’s unpredictable actions, or especially my children.

Sometimes my day actually goes much better than anticipated, and sometimes much worse. But each of those days was the day that the Lord had made.

Today, somewhere, a bride is glaring out the window at the gathering rain clouds. A set of adoptive parents are finally meeting the child for which they have longed. A man is holding his mother’s hand as she dies. A group of long-lost friends are reuniting after decades. All on this, the day that the Lord has made.

Today is a Mercy

Sometimes the day the Lord has made is not the day I planned. Sometimes, I flat out tell God that today is not the day I want. But I am learning that, regardless, today is a mercy. I often lack the eyes to see that particular mercy. But each day is still a mercy for the simple reason that God, its creator, is Mercy itself. I don’t get to define what mercy is, and then decide if this day qualifies or not. Instead, I search out what the author of mercy has deigned to reveal to me about mercy while I spend another day on His earth.

His mercy is new every morning, and every new morning is itself His mercy.

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Thank God for the mercy of this day, exactly as He made it, and ask Him to help you embrace it. #catholicmom

Tomorrow morning, look out on the new day and claim it as the day the Lord has made. It won’t be quite what you expect. For someone out there, it will be the best day of their whole life; for someone else, the worst. But thank God for the mercy of this day, exactly as He made it, and ask Him to help you embrace it.

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