Pär Lagerkvist wrote: “Sometime, you will be one of the people who lived long ago. The earth will remember you as it remembers the grass and the forests. As the soil remembers the decomposing leaves, and as the hills remember the winds. Your peace will be as infinite as the sea.”

The quickest route to appreciating life is to think of death. And then of all the beautiful and important things that are going to happen before that. Between now and our deathbed, what do we hope to accomplish and contribute? For whom do we want to make a difference, who do we want to love, to give of our time and commitment to?

Help me today to remember that my words and my presence are needed. Let my thoughts, my gaze and the story of my life make a difference. Make my laughter, my voice and my dreams important to someone beside myself. Help me to appreciate life. 

A year seldom turns out as we had anticipated. New opportunities arise; people leave, and circumstances alter. Priorities come into focus, philosophies of life are fine-tuned, and unexplored goals appear. What endures is the knowledge that, whatever the context, we can only live one day at a time.

In the coming year we can make the best of every opportunity we are given. We can bear in mind that we have gifts to give, and that we feel best if we contribute from what we hold closest to our hearts. As life goes on and days shift, we can be open to opportunities that arise when the doors to places we have outgrown close behind us.

Help me to see what is good and honest in the things and people who cross my paths in life. Remind me to make the earth a more beautiful place than it was when I first arrived. Help me to behave as if each day is the last one I will have.