During my growing up years, our grandmother lived with us periodically. She always tried to make herself useful, but we really loved her for her stories, and some of her most endearing gifts were the cookies she baked in the afternoon just before we came home from school. When my brother and sisters and I walked into the house we could smell fresh cookies most days. They would be laid out on the kitchen table. On the way home we speculated about whether they would be molasses, sour cream, or chocolate with white icing. Each of us had our favorite, but we were actually just hungry, and we liked all her flavors.

My mother often reminded us that not all children had fresh cookies after school, and that “some day” we would appreciate this gift. I wondered what she meant. Isn’t eating a cookie the only way to appreciate it? And weren’t we doing that? Afterwards we went outside to play, or stayed in to do homework. Usually we thanked Grandma. I never imagined what “some day” meant, or what would happen to make me “appreciate” more than I did that day.

The Bible is full of references to a “day”in the future that is called “that day.” It is a “day” when wrong will be made right: The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled, and human pride brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. (Isaiah 2:11) Jesus also spoke to his disciples of a “day” ahead when God’s presence would be known, and the disciples would have a new, direct access to Jesus’ Father God. Jesus makes Isaiah’s words personal and real for the disciples: In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father Himself loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God.” (John 16:26-27) St. Paul, who never saw Jesus before the the resurrection, wrote to his friend Timothy about himself, and about “that day”: I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. (2 Timothy 1:12)

In today’s world I can only imagine baking cookies almost every school day in time for the grandchildren to have them when they get home. I begin to have an inkling of what my mother meant by saying “Some day” I would understand.

Jesus speaks openly to his disciples about a “day” when their relationship with God will change. It will be characterized by a Father’s love, and it will draw them closer to Jesus himself. In “that day” is a promise to each of us, as well.

Love in Him,

Prue