The kettle began to whistle just as the first light slipped through my window.
I reached over to turn off the stove before it woke anyone else in the house. It was just after six in the morning. The truck that packs dirt pass our street every morning had already arrived. I picked up the waste bin from the kitchen and stepped outside.
The neighbourhood was only beginning to wake up. Emmanuel's generator next door hummed steadily through the quiet. Across the fence, Mrs. Mary was sweeping her veranda with the slow, familiar rhythm I had watched on countless mornings.
After emptying the bin, I washed my hands at the tap outside.
“Good morning, Aunty," I called.
She looked up, smiled, and replied in the warm, effortless way she always did.
"Good morning, my love. How you dey?"
"I'm fine," I answered, smiling back before heading inside.
I poured the hot water into a mug and sat by the window with my Bible still closed beside me.
The steam curled slowly into the cool morning air. The dirt truck had moved farther down the street, stopping every few houses before continuing on its way. Soon the neighbourhood would become noisier. Gates would swing open. Children would hurry to school. Cars would pull out one after another as people left for work.
For now, though, the morning was content to be ordinary.
I reached for my Bible and opened it. The pages settled on Psalm 118, and my eyes fell on a verse I had read more times than I could remember.
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."
I read it once. Then i read it again.
The verse wasn't unfamiliar. If anything, it had become so familiar that i hardly stopped to think about it anymore. I had always associated it with days that naturally invited celebration—the day a prayer was answered, the day someone shared a testimony in church, the day life unfolded exactly as I had hoped.
But that morning didn't feel like one of those days.
Nothing had changed overnight.
The questions i had gone to bed with were still waiting for me. There were prayers I was still carrying, decisions I had not yet made, and hopes that remained just that—hopes. In less than an hour, I would get dressed for work, join a shuttle to Mile 3, greet familiar faces at Genesis where I worked as a sales rep, answer emails, arrange files, and return home in the evening to begin another day that looked very much like this one.
It was, by every measure, an ordinary morning.
Yet the verse i read that morning didn't say, "This is the extraordinary day."
It didn't say, "This is the day when everything finally makes sense."
It simply said, "This is the day."
I looked out through the window again. Mrs. Mary had gone inside and her broom now rested against the wall. Emmanuel's generator was still humming. The street was fully awake, but nothing about it had become remarkable.
Only the way I was looking at it had changed.
I had spent years expecting to find God in moments that interrupted life.
I was beginning to wonder if He had been quietly waiting for me in the life I kept calling ordinary.
I carried the verse with me to work that morning.
Not like I had finally understood what the verse was about.
As I entered a shuttle going to Mile 3, Port Harcourt, the roads were already filling up. Colleagues arranged their stands. Street vendors arranged their goods as they always do. A man balanced a tray of bread on his head as he crossed the road. A lady hurriedly sat beside me in the shuttle, checking the time on her phone.
Nothing about the morning demanded to be remembered.
By eight o'clock, I was at my desk in Genesis where I work as a sales rep. I exchanged greetings with few colleagues before settling into work my work for the day. Products the manager had brought in for me waited to be sorted. Early customers waiting for official opening time to be served. Sales that day was good. There were lots of customers coming in and going out often enough to make the hours disappear.
It was an ordinary Monday.
Or Tuesday.
Truthfully, the days often looked so much alike that they borrowed from one another.
Yet during work hours that day, without warning, my mind returned to the verse.
“This is the day..."
Not yesterday.
Not tomorrow.
This day.
I realized how often I had postponed joy to another time.
I would rejoice when the prayer was answered.
I would be grateful when life became easier.
I would notice God's goodness when something extraordinary happened.
Without meaning to, I had treated ordinary days as though they were simply the waiting room for the life I really wanted.
But what if this was the life?
What if God had never asked me to endure today while waiting for a better tomorrow?
What if He had given me this day—not because it was spectacular, but because it was enough?
The questions stayed with me long after I left the work.
None of those things I experience that day had changed my circumstances.
Yet somehow they no longer felt small.
I think I had overlooked them because I was searching for God in places that were easier to recognise.
Miracles are impossible to ignore.
Ordinary mornings require attention.
And I am beginning to realise how little attention I had been paying.