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Sometimes I thought his words tried to bypass the difficulty of the day by jumping ahead to a new day. It might not be better tomorrow. In fact, it might be worse. A lot worse. I never got the chance to ask my dad why this mantra of life was so important. For him, there was something about a new day. Hope for tomorrow was seemingly in the air that he breathed. His pattern of life went something like this – it was evening, it was morning, a new day!
To be sure, some days are not good. Life does not go well, easily. Sometimes we need to call it a day. It is what it is. It might not get any better today but that is not the end of the story. There is more! There is tomorrow…. We do not know what tomorrow will bring but there is something that is drawing us forward…a whole new day is breaking loose. It is evening, it is morning, a new day!
In the fall of 2003, the leukemia came back again. My dad’s three sons carried him one night from the house to the car and from the car to the hospital entrance. He was too weak to walk. He died on a Tuesday. A few days later we stood in a cold, cold desolate cemetery. His kids, with clinch-filled hands of dirt, made the sign of the cross upon his casket. It was not a good day. It never is. Still, to borrow words that my dad used on the worst of days, “It will be better tomorrow.” For him, because of Christ, the dawning of a new day had already begun…and finally that tomorrow was the day of days!
It was evening, it was morning, a new day!
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