Most of us like to have things in order.

We make lists. We keep calendars. We plan the day, the week, the trip, the meeting, the meal, the future. We feel better when we know what comes first, what comes next, and what we can expect after that.

A wonderful woman recently reminded me what comes first.

When she was a pig-tailed little girl, she spent a great deal of time with her grandfather, Paw Paw, who lived out in the country. He had a nickname for her—one he had made up himself: Grabble Tail. No one knew where the name came from, but it belonged to her because he had given it to her. And he never stopped calling her by it. She often spent the night at his house, and when she was about nine years old, she began “cooking” for him during her visits. One day she put chicken pot pies in the oven, then ran outside to play.

An email angered me because it was full of misinformation. My first impulse was to write the sender back and “set them straight.”

Once, as a young adult, I revisited my grammar school— E.R. Dickson Elementary in Mobile, Alabama. It was just as I had remembered it, all in living color! The smell of freshly waxed hallways, the murmuring voices of children in their classrooms, and the aroma of food wafting from the cafeteria. That day, everything came back to me like scenes from an old movie reel. After walking the hallways, I entered the cafeteria, which was also used for school plays and assemblies, and was struck by how much smaller everything was than it had seemed when I was a child.

According to psychologist Abraham Maslow, our first and most basic needs are physical: food, water, clothing, rest, and shelter. Then comes our need for safety. After that comes our need for love and belonging, followed by our need for self-esteem. At the top of his hierarchy is self-actualization— the process of becoming the person we were created to become.

Before life could flourish, there had to be a place for life to flourish.

What is the first thing you do in the morning when your feet touch the floor?