“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” — Mother Teresa

When someone asks about my “five year plan,” when I see people that I know and love on Instagram planning out the next 12 months in a family meeting, or when I see girls that have blog posts scheduled 30 weeks out, I begin to break out in hives.

I’ll never be like that.

I’m not a planner. Not like that. Nor am I really a budgeter. And perhaps that’s a problem to some of you. I don’t look at January and say, “Wow! What a blank slate! Let’s plan out the year!”

I simply move gently from December and the holidays into a new month with hope and anticipation that this year will be a little bit better than the year before. I do it quietly, without fanfare, and without a ton of planning.

I guess I’m more of a “today” type of girl.

The problem with January, besides the fact that all public gym facilities are completely swamped, is that we expect so much from the future and, because of the new-slate-ness of the month, we are tricked into thinking that it will be different this time around.  We look down the road and see all of the possibilities and then camp there, and only there, sometimes. We choose words to guide our year and we set out to lose weight, eat clean or read the Bible every morning.

And there is nothing wrong with this at all. There just seems to be something missing in the middle of it.

In my teens, one of my friend’s mother was always going to “start her diet on Monday.” I would always think, why not start it now? Why are we waiting until Monday? What is so special about Monday?

There isn’t anything wrong with planning or waiting until a good day to begin a new program, but if the change is something we want to make, let’s begin now. The problem with January is that if we need to make a change, let’s do it today, not wait until a new year flips over every year.

Mother Teresa makes a good point (quoted above): Let’s not wallow in the past or really figure out the future. Today is important and only that. She was really echoing James when he warned about thinking too hard about the far future. He says, “The reality is you have no idea where your life will take you tomorrow. You are like a mist that appears one moment and then vanishes another.”

It really is about today.

It isn’t about yesterday or about the future but about the now.

It is about the people and the love that is put in front of us right now. It is about the justices today that we want to see righted, it is about the problems that we can begin to solve today. It is about the simple, small change we can make in one life, right now. It is about the kind word, the quick note, the forgiveness we can give this minute.

It is about today.

What change will you make today? Are you a planner? What is God putting in front of you today?

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