Everything seems better in the morning. Dark though the night may be, deep though the shadows fall, there’s always light at the break of day. In the morning, we tend to think more clearly and act with more purpose.
Henry David Thoreau believed that “The morning, the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour…” and that “…for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.”[1]
No wonder parents, and their parents before them, have counseled children to “sleep on it” when faced with important decisions. Fatigue, even weariness of mind and body, can affect our outlook in the evening hours. Work that seems so daunting at night somehow becomes more doable at dawn. The aches and pains that went to bed with us are often not so sharp when we first awake.
Something about the fresh outlook of a new day helps us feel rejuvenated and alive. A gift from God to His creations, daybreak is a time of rebirth: blossoms bend, almost backwards, to find morning light; droplets of morning dew wash the grass and leaves, as if to prep them for the day’s work; birds proclaim the beginning of another day with their merry songs. All nature seems aware, even dependent on morning’s blessings. And, in a sense, we are too.
So next time you find yourself weighed down with worry, remember the promise of old: “…weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”[2]
Program #3954
[1] Thoreau, Henry David, Walden, “Where I Lived,” p. 133.
[2] Psalm 30:5