I wake up with a morning prayer by Marcus Stanley. Each prayer starts with: “Dear God, thank You for this day.” And each day I say it out loud.

After following Marcus on Instagram for years, I signed up to receive his daily prayer this year, the first year I’ve had weekly reminders of aging.

This morning as I opened up my computer, I saw an Elisabeth Elliot quote: “Today is mine. Tomorrow is none of my business. If I peer anxiously into the fog of the future, I will strain my spiritual eyes so that I will not see clearly what is required of me now.”

For years I faced the future with “preparation.” I rehearsed in my head all the possible scenarios that I might have to “handle” and reviewed them after the fact. I believed that this was how to be confident, articulate, and avoid stupid mistakes. And it helped a lot. I knew I can do things “by the seat of my pants,” but preferred reducing the stress by working ahead of time.

This was good to learn and practice, until it wasn’t. Don’t misunderstand me—I still like to work ahead rather than last-minute, but that is for things I do, not about who I really am, confidence, mistakes, or learning from my errors. And most importantly, I realized that today didn’t belong to me, but to God. Every day does. Whether I feel ready for it or not, God is in control. That is where my faith resides. That is my refuge, where I find peace and rest. Even on the bad days.

The “preparation” that I do today is praise, worship, and prayer. Oh, I still set deadlines with weekly progress checks on writing, and I make to-do lists and check things off. But that isn’t what gives me confidence, or faith, or the ability to make it through the day.

That is God, and only God.