one more minute

Have you ever heard those words uttered by your children before school or dinner? Have you ever heard them from a young couple, wiping tears away from their faces, at the airport? Have you ever felt them coming to your lips as you sit beside a friend or family member at the hospital?

Our youngest son, who has autism, doesn’t transition from a preferred task to a non-preferred task very easily. If he’s playing with Thomas the Train, he doesn’t want to go and brush his teeth to get ready for bed. His favorite phrase, as of late, is, “just a minute.”

Last week, one of our worship leaders at Unity asked me if he could stay after church just to play and sing. He said he needed another minute to worship before he went home.

And as I think about all these things, I think about how our days after the winter equinox are growing longer. On average, we gain two minutes of daylight per day. Perhaps God is showing us through nature (Psalm 19) that even when things seem dark, the light is winning.

How are you going to spend those extra minutes today?