God didn’t owe me the right to be born into this life.
He lent this one-of-its-kind, never-to-be-replicated earthly life to me, and I have no reason to see it as anything but a gift of God’s grace.
I did nothing to earn this gift of life. Anything thus far that I’ve been able to accomplish is due to the combination of gifts, ability and talent with which God gifted me. That, and a stubborn will that doesn’t know when to quit. All those times when it looked like I was discouraged and quitting? I was actually backing away, thinking and deciding another way to go about whatever challenge I faced.
This blessing of life which God lent me is something I don’t take for granted. Four times that I remember my life could have been snuffed like a candle in the wind, though I’m sure there were others I never saw because He never let them close enough. For this I am grateful, since this earthly life is temporary. What a tragedy it is for one’s life to be taken before much of it has been lived.
I have been and am being blessed, therefore, by the life I’ve been lent by God. Today, therefore, I reflect on the richness of all it’s experiences that make it uniquely mine; and I receive the gift of it in humility and gratitude to God who has lent it to me for a little while.
© D. Dean Boone, February 2016