Every Moment Holy
this moment also
I was anxious before bed last night, my mind full of questions and upcoming unknowns. So I rolled over and picked up a favourite book off my shelf — Every Moment Holy.1 I turned the familiar pages of the beautiful brown book until finally settling upon “A Liturgy for Those Who Cannot Sleep.” Closing my eyes briefly, I opened them and began to read the liturgy softly to myself. The rhythmic cadence of the words rolling over each other filled my heart, reminding my weary, anxious soul of reality. Somehow, those words set my heart on what is true, and in fixing my eyes on the presence of Jesus in the room, my anxiety, like the shadows, fled, and I finally slept.
It wasn’t magic — reading a liturgy or doing some liturgical act in the midst of everyday life (or sleepless nights) doesn’t make everything better. The queue doesn't disappear after you read the liturgy for standing in a line. There are still moments of frustration, sadness, grief, confusion, and pain. In the midst of these moments (the painful and the hopeful), pausing and setting your heart on things above only deepens your awareness of Jesus’s presence amid the layers of your life. Sometimes, praying a liturgy in the midst of normal life reminds us that Jesus is here in this moment and that He does care.
So, if every moment is holy, and if you and I believe that, then how come we tend to spend most of our lives striving for the next thing? If our days and lives are made up of moments, doesn’t the reality of every moment being holy change our perspective on things? How come we don’t take time to embrace the moments that we have been given today, this afternoon, this hour?
If all of this is true, then what would life look like if I chose to live like every moment was actually holy? This moment, in which I’m typing little black characters onto a painfully lit screen. The next one, when I breath out…. and look up, wondering what to say next. And the next moment, and the next. This moment also — it’s holy.
Every moment holy.
I want this reality to sink deep into my soul. I want it to pop up when I’m tempted to rush away from something or someone. I want to pause and linger longer. I want to choose to enjoy these days — I realised again the other day that time doesn’t actually rewind, it’s always going forward, and we won’t get this day back again in the same way. I want to capture these memories, the good and the beautiful and the funny and hard and ugly. I want to choose joy despite the tears. I want to dream like everything is possible. I want to love like Jesus loved. I want to live today in full confidence that the Author has already written tomorrow. I want to live in the present. We’re not waiting around until something grand happens — we’ve arrived. As poet Joshua Luke Smith writes, this is the main event.2 We’ve arrived. And so this moment, friends? It is holy.
Life Musings:
This is the main event, dear friends, and thus, every moment is holy.
Elsie x
all photos in this post © 2026 Elsie Coppedge
Every Moment Holy by Douglas K Mckelvey.
This was a beautiful reminder, and one I needed to hear. 💕
Oh, that final paragraph was just... it was a powerful reminder. I think deep down, many of us know it, but it takes the power of the written word to draw that knowledge to the front of our minds and to whisper that life isn't about the rat race. It's about living, and living in Christ.