Your Day - A Blank Page

Your Day - A Blank Page
by Barbara Chadwick



Each day when you open your eyes you have a whole new day ahead of you, an entire blank page. You may think your day's page is already full but you have the power over your page. You have the power to insert some splotches of color onto a gray page day, to rejoice over a day already filled with color, or to fill a totally blank page with blessing others.

I am on lesson 40 in my writing course. It is titled, The Creative Process. The point is to write. The first assignment is to fill three double-spaced pages as fast as you can. It's an exercise in free writing. It doesn't matter what you write!

In the textbook the author tells about larceny in his third grade. When the teacher left the room he would take some blank pages from her desk. He'd fold the pages over then staple a construction paper cover to the back. He could hardly wait until school was over so he could begin filling those empty pages with stories!

How wonderful would it be if we could hardly wait to get up in the morning to begin filling the blank pages of our day with our story!? Then if the words and actions on that page would glorify God it would be amazing!

Jerry Jenkins says, "As a Christian the pages of our days should be sacred - devoted to God." Paul says in Romans 12:1 that presenting ourselves to God is our reasonable service. It is an act of worship. So, in a writing course to bring out the creative side in us we can just begin writing. We can write anything. We can write as fast as we can without thinking about punctuation or - consequences. However, in a life it does matter what we write on our days. Our days are not an assignment or just practice. We need to be thinking about intentionality.

When I prayed at breakfast this morning I thanked God for the day and the opportunities it presented to us. Now, after having my devotional my mind goes to the day before me. What do I have to get done today? My mind makes a list: lesson 40, a luncheon with friends, mending, grocery shopping, etc.

On the blank page of my day have I put down any intentional activities to be encouraging to anyone? (I need to include my family here!) Will I speak to anyone about Jesus? How can I share my resources with someone in need? Can I show kindness and love to someone today? (How about my family?) I keep inserting "family" here because so many times our families receive the gray or even black pages of our daily story! They must receive some of our rosiest pages.

If we could keep a tablet (of blank pages!) by our bedside and just before going to bed we could jot down whatever way our page for that day was a blessing to someone, would it help to remind us that tomorrow we have another wonderful page to fill with God's goodness and grace?