‘We know not the day nor the hour’
Good thing, too. Imagine having that deadline out there when you know your time will be up. Although…..we’d probably re-order our priorities real fast if we did know.
Bret Michaels’ story is one of those good reminders we periodically get when people have close calls, and his message in recovery is ‘hang on to the time you’ve got.’
Bret Michaels tells People magazine he’s “lucky to be alive.”….
He recalls that he was lying on the couch on April 21 when he felt pain. “I thought someone shot me in the back of the head like a burglar.” The Celebrity Apprentice contestant says the hemorrhage “sounded like a handgun, like it literally popped.” He explains: “It made my mind go almost blank. My neck tensed up. I couldn’t move my head at all.”
(his story recounted here)
Michaels remembers asking an emergency room doctor if he was going to die, and if he had a chance to survive, he didn’t want his two daughters, Raine Elizabeth, 9, and Jorja Bleu, 5, “to see me in this condition.”
Now in a physical rehab facility on the road to a full recovery, Michaels says, “It just wasn’t my time yet. I really believe that.”
Someone may say ‘that’s obvious’, because there he is telling his story. But his message has the deeper implication that there’s a divine providence to each individual’s life, that it’s not a random existence just bumping along until it ends and that’s all there is. With pop atheism enjoying more attention these days, Michaels’ message is positively Scriptural.
Like Psalm 139: 13-16.
Today I had the occasion to recall again some wisdom I like to pass on a lot, but then tend to forget (over & over). I wore something special that means a lot that I highly value, a gift from a friend, but save for ‘special occasions.’ We all have a number of things like that…..whether clothing or jewelry or china we bring out only for ‘a special occasion’ and then keep tucked away, other than a few days a year. I heard of a young husband and father whose wife passed away suddenly and much too soon. When her sister went through her belongings, she noticed something lovely that she hadn’t seen before. The grief-stricken husband said ‘She was saving it for a special occasion. But every day you’re alive is a special occasion.’
So today, my son reminded me of that wisdom he learned from me years ago…..
Why don’t you wear that more often?
Because it’s so special, I save it for occasions like this.
But you know that…
Yes, yes….every day you’re alive is a special occasion. I know that.
Bret Michaels probably started that day as normally as any other, before suffering a subarachnoid hemorrhage. He’s ‘lucky’ to be alive, and he knows that. “It wasn’t my time yet.”
My takeaway from this is…every day we’re alive, we still have time. I intend to make the most of it.
