March 26, 2023 - Four Hours

     I got the nudge.  It’s the middle of the night and I’d like to go back to bed, but it would be useless because I felt the nudge to write a very unintended blog on Sunday morning.
     Four hours.  Four hours can be an eternity if I had to sit in the dentist’s chair or lie on the radiation machine for that long.  Four hours up with a sick child. 
     Four hours might pass quickly if I am fishing and they are biting or I am sitting on the beach “watching the tide roll away.”
     Friday night/Saturday morning I experienced something that I hadn’t since the radiation started.  I slept for four hours straight.  It was as helpful as four hours of sleep to parents of young children who may have trouble sleeping.
     After the second radiation treatment and following, I was up as many as 10 times a night.  Every 45 minutes to an hour. 
     Four hours brought hope that maybe someday soon the normal functions of my body might be healing.
     We take so many things for granted every day.  We usually don’t think twice about the way God has made our bodies and how they function, until they don’t function as they should.
     One of my sisters has an issue with her lungs.  She sounds horrible and breathing for her is difficult.  We never think twice about breathing until we can’t breathe and then it is the most important thing to us.
     I take for granted so many of God’s blessings in my life.  A warm home, food in the fridge, the loving people in my life.  That list is limitless.  Maybe even the truth that God loves me and has sent His One and Only Son to die for me.  I have heard that all of my life.  May I never take for granted the greatest truth of life.
     Lord, help me have a grateful heart, mindful of your gifts to me.  Help me never to take your blessings for granted.  Even four hours of sleep.