Posted on: 29th January 2026

‘Just for today’

Three little words… ‘Just for today’…but to those in recovery they are words that define the life-long journey of living with addiction. Not wondering what tomorrow will bring, not being fearful of whether tomorrow’s draw of drugs will be too strong, not being drawn into a descending cycle of reflecting on tomorrow’s fragilities. Just for today for those in recovery means living through the difficulties and challenges that lie immediately before you and as you finally close your eyes at night being proud of having faced them and overcome their darkness, until tomorrow calls. Those three little words are a common mantra here at the Crypt. When I am sitting alongside someone who is struggling with their recovery journey, often the simplest advice is also the profoundest…live just for today, well done for living through today, I am in awe of your strength just being here today. 

Which does beg the question about what tomorrow represents, and how we face the unknown of tomorrow as we live for today. In his first Christmas broadcast after the start of the Second World War, King George VI quoted a poem that had been given to him by his wife Queen Elizabeth. They were no idle words. The extract from a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins, encapsulated the fear of treading forward into a tomorrow of unknowns. For the nation the King addressed by wireless that day, it was a tomorrow of unknowns that would stretch forward into six long years of war.  
 
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown".
And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way".
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East. 

When we step forward into the unknown, what better comfort could we have, then knowing that whatever our fears in that moment, our hand rests in the hand of Him who has no fear. It takes a rare courage not to wonder that tomorrow brings, and however much we try to live just for today, there is the reality that tomorrow calls us, as it always will, so let us thank the Lord, as we step forth, we do so not alone.