February 27, 2010
Beautiful Day
I was standing by the glass door of our family room, praying. I looked up and took notice of the clear blue sky with a cloud here or there. It was a really beautiful day, particularly after several weeks of rainy days, an unusual occurence here in Southern California. I thanked God for giving us a beautiful day … but I stopped. Yes, we had a beautiful day here, but what about other places? With weather patterns being what they are, and with people spread out all over the planet, it wasn’t highly probable that everyone was waking up to this so-called beautiful day. At that same moment, someone somewhere was probably looking at a cold, dreary morning with overcast skies that promised a few more inches of snow. Somewhere else it may have been a hot and humid day. I remember that February used to be the worst month for pollution in Mexico City, because of a phenomenon called thermal inversion which basically compressed the smog into a dense, toxic, low-altitude layer.
So I thought, if I thank God for giving me a beautiful day, what about all those people who didn’t wake up to the same kind of day? Did God not give them the same gift? Did God decide who was going to benefit from beautiful weather that morning and who was going to end up with rotten weather?
I don’t think so. God created the earth, and with it He set up the physical laws that determine the distribution of heat, and moisture, and air pressure, and all those intricate things that produce what we call weather. Weather is what it is. God doesn’t need to micromanage it every second of every day, and especially not for my exclusive enjoyment. So I decided to change my prayer, because I don’t think God’s gift is a “beautiful day.” I think his gift is the faith that allows us to go through each day, whether it’s beautiful or not.
J De Anda