The memory of these words, told to me long ago by someone struggling to find joy, entered my mind last night as I drove to meet my husband at the hospital. He had a virus and without realizing it became dehydrated. The result was his eyes rolling back in his head, his skin turning a waxy yellow, and him being completely unresponsive to my words or touch. Though I recently attended CPR training I realized I was ridiculously unprepared and thanked God that he never stopped breathing. He woke up a few minutes later, the paramedics were on their way. They took him to the hospital, and I waited for my parents to arrive to watch our sleeping sons. As I drove I thought of how fragile and truly unpredictable life is. We just returned the day before from a family trip to North Carolina. We all hiked and raced one another at different points along the trails. Then we come home, he gets a fever, and I am driving alone in the middle of the night to get to him. No, life is not boring. No matter how much I sometimes wish it were.
Life is a grand adventure sometimes filled with exuberant highs and tragic lows. Thank God most of the time we are somewhere in between. Last night was a somewhere in between moment, but it gave me the smallest of glimpses at tragedy and that glimpse was a reminder that every single thing in life is a gift. It doesn’t have to exist. And one day it won’t. I think on that day I hope I can tell God I saw life as an adventure, and I did all I could to live it well. I did all I could to say Yes to Him. I know I struggled and fell and missed the point time and time again, but I never thought it was boring and I always saw it as the gift it was.