The Gift of Life

There is no greater gift in this world than the gift of LIFE.

As a mother screams giving a final push her little one comes into this world.  The gift of life just took on a whole new meaning.  The baby’s first cries leave people in the room with tears freely flowing down their faces, in awestruck wonder of the beautiful creation that is now living and breathing on it’s own.

That screaming baby once was you and me.  Today, we are grown adults living our life on a daily basis but I wonder, are we really looking at the gift of life for the true gift that it is each day we wake up?

I’m going to share two gifts that have made such devastatingly HUGE impacts in my life.  The first happened 8 years ago.  In a blog I shared a while back A New Heart, it goes into great detail of this first life changing impact.  I’m not going to hit all the nitty gritty details today, so if you want to read those please check out the link provided above.  Here’s the shortened version for those that don’t want the details.

Eight years ago I was a completely different person than the individual standing here writing today.  On a cold December’s night I ended up crying out to my Papa God with a heart that was completely broken, needing repairs that only my Papa could provide.  As I cried out to him in anguish while on my knees, tears flowing down my face, I felt a peace immediately come into my heart as I cried out to him in the dark of night.  This peace blows my mind and heart wide open to this very day.  I’ve never experienced a peace so real and true.  I still have it and freely can say it has changed my life literally from the inside out.  How cool is that?

We don’t have to see eye to eye on this subject of faith, and we can both be okay with that, right?  My point in sharing this is I was given a chance to change my life 8 years ago to the day, that I freely accepted.  It was the desire of my heart.  Today, I want to share that you too can have that if you so choose to.  There’s not a certain way to receive it, other than with a heart that truly wants life, peace, and forgiveness from a Papa that loves you like no other Papa in the world can possibly love you.

So what’s the second gift of life I was given?  This is one that to this day brings thankful tears to my eyes.  I’m thankful to be here today to share with with you, because in all truth, by statistics standards, by the medical fields standards, and with how ill I was (literally dying), I shouldn’t be alive.  But, I AM alive.

There is not a single day that goes by that I am not thankful to be here, alive and well.  To be living, breathing, and being healthy and well is something I am so thankful for.  If you read my personal health journey story from illness to wellness, you know very well what I’m talking about.  In one particular blog, Fading In, Fading Out, that was the day where I was ‘in the gray’, not in this world but not technically dead either.  I was in the in-between.  A place where I was able to choose LIFE or leaving this earth to be with my heavenly father, my Papa God.  I wasn’t ready to go home yet, and my Papa allowed me to stay on this earth, giving me once again the gift of life.

The gift of life holds such tremendous value and worth.  It is irreplaceable, a treasure that some find to be precious all too late in life.  Being a younger person I’ve been truly blessed to see and experience firsthand how beautiful the gift of life is.  It’s a blessing that I don’t thank for granted.

The gift of life doesn’t have to be experienced by bringing life into this world.  For women, many do experience this and that is hands down one of the most amazing and beautiful experiences that can be experienced.  (Sorry guys, you don’t get to experience the birth for yourselves, but being with your wife through it all is pretty amazing too!)  For others, the gift of life is experienced in the death of a loved one.  Some others experience the gift of life when crying out to God with a heart that wants to receive his love and forgiveness.  And yet for others, they’ve experienced something like I did, a near death experience that changed their life.

It doesn’t matter what your experience may be.  What matters is that we each realize what a true gift the gift of life really is.  It’s something that can so easily take for granted, yet can slip away in the blink of an eye.

Today as I reflect on my life I’ve been blessed with the gift three different times in my life.  And let me say I in NO way shape or form and bragging when I say this.  Instead I’m completely humbled and thankful with a heart blown wide open.  Being given the gift of life as my Mom gave birth to me, she gave me life.  Thank you Mom.  Receiving peace and forgiveness and a new life from Papa God gave me new life through Christ on December 29th, 2011 was the second time.  And the third was on the bathroom floor as my eyes rolled back in my head and everything went quite for a time before I came back to this amazing life.

I have no words other than thankful, grateful, humbled, and honored to be here today to celebrate the gift of life with you.  As this year comes to an end and another one is right around the corner I hope that you realize what a true gift your life is.  It’s a treasure chest that is waiting to be opened and explored.  With eyes wide open and a heart that is receiving, it’s time to see this gift of life for what it truly is.