Birthdays and other miracles

A few days ago my eldest had her 35th birthday. The next day her son, my eldest grandson, had his 15th. Later this year my youngest will have her first (a girl) followed not to long after by another granddaughter, the second for that son and his wife. Four of my nieces are also pregnant, the first due in April, number four for that family. The rest will be firstborns. There are quite few more birthdays, both before and after that but this batch set me to thinking, always a dangerous proposition...

Being born is a miracle. Happens all the time, I know, but it is still a miracle. So many things can and do go wrong in birthing. Two of my grands were preemies, one 5 1/2 wks and one a full 3 mos. My youngest had to be born by c-section after 3 days of labor and complications that developed. And so on.

We are surrounded every day by the miraculous and we don't even give it a second thought. Oxygen to breathe and lungs that know what to do with it. A heart that beats and beats and beats circulating the liquid miracle that moves things around to the right places at the right time so the oxygen comes in and the poisonous carbon dioxide goes out and white cells can fight invaders and the red ones carry nutrients that came in thru the mouth and went into the stomach and not the lungs and so on.

When some part of this miracle goes awry, bad things begin to happen. Tiny electrical misfire- heart stops. Al hell breaks loose! Imbalance in the minerals and things- kidneys or gall bladder form stones which clog up tiny tubes and....all hell breaks loose! Pancreas secretes too much or too little insulin in response to the foods that come in, blood sugar goes whacky and....all hell breaks loose!

And those are just the miracles inside us, no mention of all those that surround us as leaves take sunlight,carbon dioxide (poison to us, good stuff for them) and water and make food to feed the plants that scrub the air and then feed us. Gravity holds us down just enough. The ocean stays where it belongs and the clouds bring rain and the wind blows and the sun shines....All of this in balance and perfect and we take it all as normal and reasonable and right until a drought....a tsunami....a hurricane...a plane crash....and all hell breaks loose.

There is an old musical called, "Flower Drum Song". The young Chinese immigrant girl sings about "one hundred million miracles, they're happening every day." 

I want to notice. I want to have the eyes to see and the ears to hear these miracles! I do not want to be the sort of person that takes for granted the miracle of sight and hearing! I don't want to be the one who does not notice the miracle until it is taken away. And I want to be a person who knows the One who makes these miracles. To recognize that these things were given to me as gifts and that I need to appreciate and cherish their very existence.

That is what I want.

Thank You, Father, for these, Your gifts. Help me to care for and cherish them all the days of my life!!


God bless your life!
Mona