The following article, “Today,” was written by Frank Crane and published in the Gospel Advocate on December 3, 1931—just weeks before Christmas, during the depths of the Great Depression.
Millions were without work. Families had little food, few comforts, and no assurance about tomorrow. Yet in a time of scarcity, Crane reminded his readers of a timeless truth: God gives life one day at a time—and today is enough.
As we enter the holiday season with more abundance than those readers could have imagined, we invite you to pause and reflect on this message from another time.
“Today”
By Frank Crane
“The best thing you have in the world is today. Today is your savior. It is often crucified between two thieves, yesterday and tomorrow. Today you can be happy, not yesterday nor tomorrow. There is no happiness except today. Most of our misery is left over from yesterday or borrowed from tomorrow.
Keep today clean. Make up your mind to enjoy your food, your work, your play, today, anyhow. You can do anything if you will only go at it a day at a time. If you’re bereaved, betrayed, heartbroken, why not take a day off? One day will not matter. Today, put away your pestering thoughts. Today, take some simple joys.
Today, be a little happy in the sunshine. You can do it. It’s the burden of the coming days and weeks and years that is crushing us. The present is always tolerable. Whoever planned this life of ours did well in giving it to us one day at a time. We do not have to live it all at once. Thanks, be. We have only got to get through till bedtime.
Every morning, we are born again. Why let life oppress you? You don’t have to live your life, only one day of it. Come, let us finish our small task manfully. It is not long. Do not let life mass against you. Attack it in detail, and you can easily triumph. The past is what we make of it. It is the temper of the present that qualifies it.
It depends on how you now consider it, whether it brings you despair or discouragement. Do not let the past unman you, benumb you with remorse, weaken you with self-contempt. The poet says we rise by stepping on our dead selves. And as for the future, the best preparation for it is an unafraid today. If you are to die tomorrow, the best way is to be ready to discharge faithfully today’s duties and to enjoy heartily today’s simple pleasures. Today is yours. God has given it to you. All your yesterdays He has taken back. All your tomorrows are still in His hands. Today is yours. Take its pleasures and be glad. Take its pains and play the man.
Today is yours. Just a little strip of light between two darknesses. Today is yours. Use it so that at its close you can say, I have lived and loved today.”
—Frank Crane, Gospel Advocate, December 3, 1931
We have more than they could have imagined—but perhaps the holidays are a good time to remember what they understood so well.