Living Each Day

"The experience is so slow you could easily come to believe life isn't that big of a deal, that life isn't staggering. What I'm saying is I think life is staggering and we're used to it. We all are like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we're given- it's just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral."
-Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

How powerful is this quote? It makes me want to enjoy life even more than I am already.

I went to a Book Club last night at my library. I did not know who would be there but I ended up knowing someone. I had an absolute blast and it reminded me that it's the small things in life that we need to enjoy, the precious gifts we have from God. Last night was full of laughter to the point of crying as we discussed the book. To say it was full of fun is an understatement.

I agree that life is so slow sometimes that we forget to appreciate the beauty of what God has given us. We think it's just another day. But we need to be reminded that every day is a beautiful and wonderful gift from God.

I've come close to death a few times in my life so I always try to make the most of every day. You never know when your last day will be here so you must enjoy life as it comes, no matter how difficult.

Live each day as if it is your last...

Awe and Wonder

I started reading chapter 5 of The Ragamuffin Gospel yesterday on my way to see my therapist. From the get-go, the chapter is about how the grace of God is kind of forgotten in our society. We have lost the wonder we had as children living in the world, asking "why" over and over and seeing the beauty in everything around us.

"Our world is saturated with grace, and the lurking presence of God is revealed not only in spirit but in matter- in a deer leaping across a meadow, in the flight of an eagle, in fire and in water, in a rainbow after a summer storm, in a gentle doe streaking through a forest, in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, in a child licking a chocolate ice cream cone, in a woman with windblown hair. God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us."
-Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

I admit that I know I've lost some of the wonder I had as a child. Even when I was a freshman in college, I had more wonder than I have now. The summer after freshman year, I went to UVA to do cancer research. I was so ecstatic and soon found myself in awe of the instruments I was using and the research I was doing. Every new thing about research amazed me.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to the awe and wonder I once had about the world. I wish I could find that inspiration inside of me even more, in which I see the beauty in everything in God's creation. I do definitely have moments in which I am in absolute awe of God, but I wish it was more often.