A world where it is always June?

“Would you like to live in a world where it was always June?” the signboard outside the business asked.

“I sure would,” was my inner response as I drove past. June, to quote childhood book character Mary Poppins, “is practically perfect in every way.” The sunlight early in the morning and later into the evening keeps my energy level a little bit higher than it is the rest of the year. The temperature is often pleasant enough to want to be outside for great stretches of time, reading a book, or taking care of the yard, or walking. And June is filled with those planned moments of meaning – graduations, weddings, family celebrations and trips – that beckon our memories back years later.

But June is just 30 days, and no matter how carefully I try to savor each one, it seems that in a moment the month has disappeared. And so this is a good month to pull out that verse from Psalm 90, that contain the thoughts and prayer of someone who was longing to hold on to the time he had. “Teach us to number our days,” he prayed, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

In June I am more likely remember that every hour is a gift, and more likely to take some moments each day to simply stand outside in gratitude for the day, whatever has transpired in it. In June, I am more likely to remember to “number my days,” and to be thankful that, while days may pass quickly, we live them under the care of One who “is our dwelling place in all generations...from everlasting to everlasting You are God.”