Every perfect day on this earth is a day when I am painfully aware that I was not promised any of this.
Every joyful moment when I think my heart is going to burst, whether it's because of the breathless beauty of "my fair city" of Clarksville, or helping my grandson celebrate his birthday, or being able to perform exercises at the gym -- every one of these things makes it harder to believe that this perfect life is very breakable and so very, very fragile.
This is the narrow ledge on which I and all people of faith balance -- never able to fully relax and enjoy the moment, aware that you been given the indescribably precious gift of life, and it's somehow so much more than the passing of minutes and hours and days.
I don't know why I feel the need to tell you this. I'm not even sure I know what I'm saying.
Maybe it's to make you realize just how scared I am, scared that in all of the magnificent mundane moments of time I will fail to ask "Why me, Lord?" -- why do I have a healthy family that loves me, why was I able to talk with my children in Kentucky and Alabama, why were we able to eat the local Chinese buffet out of all their food (7 grandsons, remember?) and do a pull up that two years ago was nothing but a pipe dream?
I have been changed permanently by this thing called grace, shot through with a love that knows no end, marked by a wild abandonment in the face of everything that can and will go wrong. But for today, just for this one day -- perfect.
Thank you, Lord. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.