YESTERDAY

yesterday

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Yesterday… We all have them in common. Yesterday is tough, but honest, it doesn’t lie… Only we’re capable of lying about our days – the days themselves are perfect in their honesty… and that’s as far as the perfection goes. The funny thing about yesterdays is that they’re different than most things we receive in quantity during our lives.

Usually when we have plenty of something we take it for granted – not so with our days or yesterdays. The more days we get the more precious they become, especially when we add good health into the mix.

There’s more to a day than the hours and minutes that add up to 24 hours. There’s more than the sunrise and the sunset, each day we’re given the gift of free will from God that allows us to make choices every day. The choices made during our days stack up and define our yesterdays, all the yesterdays collectively define the people we are and the legacy we leave behind.

It’s a bittersweet emotion that overcomes most of us as we ponder our yesterdays. I’m humbled as I consider mine. I have fond memories of a life full of love from others… Of all the wrong choices made, there was always unconditional love. There was structure and discipline that I challenged all the way.

One of the things we carry, sometimes to excess, is regret. The wild untamed heart, the reckless attitude and action, the pain I’ve inflicted on others while I rolled through my days as if they were only my possessions, is what grieves me the most. That’s the problem with the wrong choices we make using our free will while we burn through our days as if we’d never run out.

The love of self and the desires that accompany it are what fills the memories of yesterday with regret. In time, we often realize that the yesterday’s sought for our own gratification leave hollow memories. It is that revelation from God that opens our hearts and minds to what He calls wisdom.

Each yesterday that can be recalled as love and compassion for others in heart and deed become the yesterdays that bring peace, joy, and a smile to our face. A life lived only for the satisfaction of self will bring us to an empty life and a hollow yesterday.

The yesterday’s filled with self-sacrifice are the memories that fuel a bright and fulfilling tomorrow. The best thing about yesterday is that we have today to build upon so that we might look back in time to remember and cherish yesterday as we look forward to another tomorrow.