{"id":5442,"date":"2026-05-18T07:39:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5442"},"modified":"2026-05-18T07:39:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:39:58","slug":"this-is-the-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/18\/this-is-the-day\/","title":{"rendered":"This is the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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070811_1913~01<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>
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These days, there are almost no limitations in most states concerning the strength and variety of fireworks that individuals can buy.
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When our kids were young, however, the only way Hoosiers could get their hands on seriously cool rockets was at fireworks outlets in other states.
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During the course of a family trip, I purchased a package of missiles that shot high into the air and exploded into a bright flare. I launched one of them as soon as we got home.\u00a0It was awesome.\u00a0
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The others I decided to save for a really special occasion. So I stored them carefully in our garage \u2013 and kept waiting for a special enough day to launch the rest of the rockets.
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Years went by.
\u00a0
One weekend, when I had finally summoned enough courage to clean out our garage, I opened up a box. There they were.\u00a0I had completely forgotten we even owned them.
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Two decades had come and gone in which apparently there had never been a day that was special enough to light those fuses. That very night I launched a rocket.\u00a0I celebrated the fact that I had a clean garage.
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Not long after, I encountered a story told by author and pastor John Ortberg when his grandmother Florence died.

His grandfather called Ortberg’s mother and said, in his heavy Swedish accent, “Kathy, I was going through some of Florence’s things in the attic when I came across a box of old dishes. I was going to get rid of them, but I noticed that they’re blue \u2013 your favorite color.\u00a0Why don’t you take a look at them, and if you want them, they’re yours; otherwise, I’ll give them to the Salvation Army.”

When Ortberg’s mom visited the attic and peered into the box of what she expected to be mere\u00a0junk, she found instead some of the most exquisite china she had ever seen.

Ortberg writes, “Each plate had been individually painted with a pattern of forget-me-nots.\u00a0The cups were inlaid with mother-of-pearl.\u00a0The dishes and cups were rimmed with gold.\u00a0The plates had been handcrafted in a Bavarian factory that was destroyed during the Second World War, so they were literally irreplaceable.”

Immediately there were questions.\u00a0“Why haven’t we seen this beautiful china before?”

No one in the immediate family had an answer. But older relatives remembered the tale.

Florence had been given the china over many years, throughout her childhood.\u00a0Since it was so expensive, she had received only one piece at a time \u2013 on her birthday, perhaps, or at confirmation or graduation.

Ortberg reflects that because the china was\u00a0so valuable, and because there was a real possibility the pieces\u00a0might be broken if used, she wrapped each one in tissue.\u00a0Then she carefully put them into a box and stored it in the attic, waiting for “a very special occasion.”\u00a0

But no such occasion ever came along.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>

“So my grandmother went to her grave with the greatest gift of her life unopened and unused.”

A gift can be thought so valuable that it must never<\/em> be risked.\u00a0Or it can be thought so priceless that it must<\/em> be risked.\u00a0\u00a0

In the end, the choice is ours.\u00a0\u00a0

You may not have a box of priceless dishes. But what you do have is the power, with the Holy Spirit\u2019s guidance and prompting, to change somebody’s day.\u00a0And maybe even all of their tomorrows.\u00a0You can offer a word of encouragement or\u00a0hope.\u00a0Today might be the day that you’re in the presence of someone who is silently desperate for just such a word.

In our competitive, self-inflating, always-in-a-hurry culture, it may feel counter-intuitive to slow down, listen carefully, and to risk embarrassment by lifting up another human being.

But that might be the very gift God has always wanted you to share.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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Don’t wrap it up carefully and hide it away\u00a0in the attic.\u00a0Open the gift.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0
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What does the Bible say? \u201cThis is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it\u201d (Psalm 118:24).
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This is a special enough day.
And so is tomorrow.
And so is the next day.
\u00a0
Send up a rocket of praise, joy, and encouragement.<\/em>
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0These days, there are almost no limitations in most states concerning the strength and variety of fireworks that individuals can buy.\u00a0When our kids were young, however, the only way Hoosiers could get their hands on seriously cool rockets was at fireworks outlets in other states.\u00a0During the course of a family trip, I… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,79],"class_list":["post-5442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-courage","tag-encouragement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5444,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5442\/revisions\/5444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}