It has been exactly five years since I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Last night as I lay in bed thinking about it I fixated on 1,825. That is the number of days I have been blessed with since that night I survived the car accident brought on by a seizure caused by said tumor.
I’ve had 1,825 days:
– where I’ve gotten to wake up next to the most wondrous woman in the world, my bride. (Ok, so I’ve traveled some but it wouldn’t be quite as neat to say that I’ve only woken up next to her for 1,642 mornings).
– to be a father to the most wondrous girls in the world, my daughters Laura and Rachel;
– to grow closer to God;
– to spend with friends;
– to serve others and write books and articles;
-to marvel at the beauty of the creation;
– to live.
I’ve had fewer days for other things. There have been:
– 1,021 days where I’ve been able to be father to another of the most wonderful girls in the world, our Livvy, born in 2005.
– 312 days where I’ve been able to be father to my son.
I am so grateful and so blessed.
But as I lay there thinking I also thought about these things. If:
– I had written just one page of a book every day during the last five years I would have written more than 6 300-page books.
– I had read 10 pages every day I would have read 18,250 pages of books that I didn’t read.
– I had read a single Psalm every day I’d have gone through them nearly 18 times.
– I had walked 5 miles a day I could have walked from DC to LA and back to DC and back to LA and 1/3 of the way home again.
– I had traveled 1,825 days at that speed of light I would have reached Proxima Centauri – the closest star to the sun, a mere 4.22 light years away. (A true hop in cosmic terms considering that our puny little galaxy, the Milky Way is 100,000 light years in diameter and the visible edge of the universe is, give or take, 14 billion light years away… I digress.)
I suppose the point of all this is to say that there is so much more that we can accomplish in our lives if we just do the smallest things over and over again.
Want to write a book? One page per day. Want to read all of Shakespeare? A page a day. Want to tackle the Gulag Archipelago? A page a day. Write poems? A stanza a day.
I am so thankful for these last five years and I am so hopeful about the next five. Please Lord.