When Angels Fly

On Friday night I had the house to myself courtesy of the new Star Trek movie. The young men in my life had been beamed up. The remote was mine! I got into my comfy, lay-around-on the- sofa-with-my-dog pants and settled into digital decadence. It was my intention to not even land on anything for more than five minutes at a time. My converter box was my boogey-board and I was going surfing. This euphoria I describe should tell you what a rare happenstance I found myself in. But barely a minute into my evening I caught a big wave and rode it for two hours, finding myself reflective and refined when I made it back to shore.

I had heard somewhere that Farrah Fawcett was yet another celebrity with cancer. What I hadn't heard was that she was a warrior. I watched the documentary "Farrah's Story" and saw up close and personal how she fought desperately and heroically to conquer "the terrorist" (as her doctor put it) that had ambushed her life. I marveled at the courage she possessed as she endured painful treatments, surgery after surgery, chemo, radiation and all the hell that goes with living in one. The girl known for her hair didn't have any any longer. A friend of hers had taped her battle for well over a year, because Farrah was sure it would have a happy ending and she could be a beacon of hope for others. She fought so valiantly because, as she said several times on Friday night..."I just want my life back." Instead, as we speak, she is dying. No matter how much she wants that...it's not gonna happen. She will be a beacon, though. Just not the kind she had in mind in the beginning of all this.

I just want my life back. The places that you have to be in to utter those words have doorways I don't want to ever cross. But I have a chance to take my life back. I can say it and it is so. I don't have to beg God for that miracle. I have that miracle every day.

How is it that my life needs taking back? Anything you take for granted...you have lost. I am so lucky in so many ways...yet I am wasteful. I have a God who loves me and offers me his grace and forgiveness everyday...in spite of myself, but my Bible has dust on it. (literally). I have talents that for some reason he decided to rain on me, but I don't honor them like I should. (I actually complain out loud as I head to my studio when I have too many orders for my work.) I stopped singing. I am not sick, but I am lazy about exercise and do next to nothing to insure I stay healthy. You get the picture.

I want my life back. I want the joy that is found in "His mercy is new every morning." I want to sing again and to run to my studio everyday, thrilled that I get to make things with my hands for a living. I want to glow with health. In other words I want to take nothing for granted and seek a grateful heart. MY grateful heart. All I have to do is wake up tomorrow morning and grab it..take it...it's mine.

Grab it. Take it. It's yours.

Thank you Farrah.