THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 29, 1996 TAG: 9606280051
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Issues of Faith
SOURCE: Betsy Wright
LENGTH: 85 lines
WITH THE MINIVAN'S AC blasting out cool air, I whizzed through Pungo into an awning of trees that all too quickly turned into concrete sidewalks and suburban sprawl.
On the radio, NPR's Terry Gross was interviewing a woman with a new book. She'd had breast cancer and lived to tell the tale. At one point the woman spoke of how she'd gone to bed at night, not expecting to wake up, but praying she would. Each morning the young woman was freshly astonished to be alive.
``I would thank my creator, my higher power, for the gift of that new day.''
Gross asked the woman if she still did so. The woman ruefully replied that she does not. She said that after she got over the amazement of surviving her cancer, she fell back into the habit of taking each new day for granted.
Most of us have been there. Not breast cancer, particularly, but we've been at some other tragic point in life where we repeatedly thanked God for the gift of the next minute simply because we weren't sure we'd get it.
And then we got over our crisis and life settled down a bit and we went back to forgetting the preciousness of life.
We went back to forgetting to thank God for the gift of the next minute.
I've been in that land of neglected grace. Today, however, I find myself in a different locale.
For the last two years, I've found myself at a point where I am almost obsessive in my awareness of the preciousness - and the precariousness - of life. Just the other night, I had to take home one of my 14-year-old daughter's friends. It was late and rainy and I did not want to be out on the slick country roads.
The thought, ``This might be it,'' flashed through my brain. Instinctively I went to my sleeping baby, caressed her head and whispered, ``I love you.''
Then I did what I do hundreds of times a day: I prayed. I first thanked God for my husband and children and all my days thus far. Then I asked God to send angels to protect me on my small journey and to get me safely home again.
That prayer was answered.
These days, I find myself praying whenever my son goes out to surf, or my teen-age daughter rides her bike to a friend's house or whenever lightning cracks the sky. If my husband is late getting home, I pray, just as I'd prayed when he walked out the door to go to work that morning. I pray when my friends, Susan and Mary Lou, take a trip. I pray whenever I strap my 1-year-old in her car seat.
I pray when I am touched by someone's kindness. I pray when I hear a favorite song. I pray when I am awed by a lush canopy of trees, or a sunset or a field of dancing sunflowers. I pray when I see an egret grace a roadside swamp. I pray when I hear my Mom or Dad's voice on the phone.
I find myself rising every morning with thanks on my brain and lips. I go to bed with the same.
Because I've only recently become aware of this magnificent obsession, I've only now begun to analyze the ``whys'' of it, and there seem to be many.
While I have always been thankful and joyous about life, it seems I now have more to be thankful and joyous about than at any other time in my life. I'm fast approaching 40, an age I've looked forward to - really! - for years. My career and private life are incredibly fulfilling. I am having a wonderful love affair with my husband. My two teen-agers have turned out not only to be intelligent, personable and funny, but they are nice, really nice, kids.
To top it all off, I'm a young mommy again. Jordannah just turned 1 and her new baby brother or sister will be arriving in November.
I still have my health. I still have my parents. I still have the gift of the very next minute.
And I am thankful to God for it all, sorely conscious of the thin line between life and death.
Is my life perfect? Heck, no. I still have too many bills and not enough money. I still have days where I want to enroll my teen-agers in the French Foreign Legion. I still have disagreements with my husband. I still have poopy diapers to change. I still worry about friends. I still get the blues.
My point is that most all humans pray in bad times, times of concern, times of crisis. That's normal.
It is, however, when we pray without ceasing in the good times that we discover we are maturing in faith. When we don't seem close to losing the very next second, minute, hour or day, and yet we still remember to thank God for the next second, minute, hour or day . . . that's when we know we've reached another notch on our spiritual growth chart.
Life has become a true gift, and we're old enough to know - and acknowledge - who gives it to us. MEMO: Every other week, Betsy Mathews Wright publishes responses to her
opinion column. Send responses to Issues of Faith, The Virginian-Pilot,
150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va. 23510; call (804) 446-2273; FAX
(804) 436-2798; or send e-mail to bmw(AT)infi.net. Deadline is Tuesday
before publication. You must include name, city and phone number. by CNB