An Incredible Gift

It's a new day. However it started the same way it has for months now. I wake up. Either by alarm - internal or external. Then I lay there, begging God to 'not make me get up'! I tell Him I'm tired and although I know I have lots to do, I don't want to do it! (I can hear you laughing at me!) And God sighs a huge sigh of exasperation. "Not again", He thinks. "She is getting so whiny, sounding more and more like a baby with each day that passes. Why doesn't she just grow up?"

Poor God. He really has to work with me. I remember asking an evangelist a question one time, regarding a message he had delivered, and as I waited for his response, hoping for an answer that would satisfy the burning question I'd had within me from the time I heard him preach it, he simply smiled at me and said (in his Virgin Island's accent) "Sistuh Mahtin, I bet you give God a hawd time." Yup, that's me -- the one who gives God a hard time.

I have, in my possession, something that holds no monetary value, but I wouldn't part with it for the world. It was mama's. It hung in her window for years, and although I saw it there all those years, I never paid alot of attention to it, until the last six weeks of her life. It says, "Each new day is an incredible gift from God." I don't know where she got it, or even when, or how, but I realized it's importance as she lay in her hospital bed by the window where it hung in her last days. I especially realized how important it was to her when my sisters and I decided to decorate that window with Christmas decorations for her to enjoy during the Christmas season. We thought nothing of removing all of her window things and replacing them with Christmasy things....until she became highly disturbed to find that we'd removed that particular item. Each new day is an incredible gift from God. Needless to say, we quickly added that back in among the Christmas decor. Then, I began to realize this truth, "Each new day is an incredible gift from God."

That truth hit home again yesterday when, in the busyness of all that I had to do at the office, I stopped to make a quick call to order a port-a-pot to be placed on our new campus that's being built, for a camp-out that's scheduled this weekend. (I KNOW you are wondering where on earth this is going, or if I'm even remembering what I started to write about, but bear with me.) I ended up getting Jamie, the guy who works for the company and delivers to our particular area. I was just going to leave a quick message and get back to my newsletters which I needed to get done and mailed. Sigh. That was not to be. Jamie was in a conversational mode. He was incredibly upbeat. It was Monday, for goodness' sake! Aren't they s'posed to be dreary? Not for Jamie. He went on and on about how blessed he was, how good God was -- giving his friend who is dying more days to enjoy than the doctors thought he would have. It put me to shame.

Sometimes my life is so hectic I want to say, "Stop the world, I want to get off!" Then I remember, "Each new day is an incredible gift from God." It was for mama, who's days were numbered. It is for Jamie and his best friend, who has cancer and is not expected to live. Jamie is counting his friend's extended life 'an incredible gift from God.'

And so.... in spite of numberless days where I'm so tired from physical difficulties, and endless activity, I realize that, hey, considering the alternative, "Each new day is an incredible gift from God." And when I unwrap it anew each morning, I'm going to treat it as such -- an incredible gift.