I wish for courage

lauren withrow

I've sat here, staring at a blank 'new post' several times this month, unsure of what to write and wanting to write something real or significant. Needless to say, I gave up and signed off blogger. But I've decided to give it another go after one of my best friends said I should blog more. So here I am, sipping on cold coffee and watching Seven Pounds. Which, for those who don't know, is one of the saddest movies in the history of sad movies. Think the bee sting in My Girl for a comparison of how sad. Despite it's sadness, it's one of those movies that makes me put my life in perspective.

Do you ever think about how truly fragile our lives are? Or how easily it would be for us to be born with different circumstances? I often wonder why I was placed where I am. My mom asked me the other day if I ever thought about how if two people had made love just a few minutes earlier or later and ended up having a child, that it would be a completely different child than what the one they would have had at that moment. I thanked my mom for this splendid image (sarcasm), but I knew what she meant. If my parents hadn't made love at the moment that produced me, and had waited a few moments later, I wouldn't be here. Do you ever think about such things? Or how easily it would have been for God to have placed me in a third world country, where I would live off beans or rice every day, with limited access to clean water? Or how easily it would have been to be placed in poverty? Or how about a country that has to worry about suicide bombings daily? Or how about being blind, like the man Ezra in Seven Pounds? Or how about living in a place where I could be sentenced to death for believing in Jesus? When I think about such things, I think about how selfish I am for ever taking my life for granted. Or for forgetting how immensely blessed I am. I also find myself pondering the mystery of why we are all placed where we are.

Then I think about how tomorrow it could all change. After my mom got sick seven years ago, I realized how it only takes one second to change your life forever, how easily illness can effect you. We are all so fragile. In Seven Pounds, the character Emily has a congenital heart defect. She tells Will Smith's character how there is so much she wants to do with her life, how she wants to travel and see the world. It makes me wonder why we are so afraid to take chances. And then one day it's too late.

It's just something I've been wondering. I don't know the answer. But I hope I have the courage to live my life and not live one that is selfish. Well, enough rambling for now.

"God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us." -1 Corinthians 12:6