December 29th marked our first snowstorm on Grand Manan. I am not a snow lover by any sense of the term but somehow I enjoyed it. Grand Manan, my home, seems to add something to every experience that I have these days. Elaine and I decided to take Rango for a walk on the Seal Cove beach before the storm worsened. The sands were snow covered and the visibility was limited. Even in its wintry version it held a beauty of its own.
Our footprints were the first to mark the otherwise blank canvas. Rango’s frenzied feet threw the sand far and wide with each retrieval of the fetch stick. Three quarters of the way across the beach I asked Elaine, “What more could a million dollars give you than what you are enjoying right now?“
I asked myself the same question and the answer was immediate and obvious.
“Nothing … absolutely nothing.”
It is a beautiful realization that money can add nothing to a person’s life in and of itself. And money was just “the thing“. Truthfully we lack nothing. And everything that we enjoy is a perfect gift from the perfect Gift-giver.
I am 60 years old and I haven’t had a lot of these moments of awareness. They have come sporadically, unexpectedly along the journey, presenting themselves differently each time. The message has been the same. We have so much that we take for granted when others have so little.
Lord Jesus … thank you for your wonderful blessings. We are not kept from them by our lack of resource. They are given freely and indiscriminately. Good and perfect gifts! Like everything else they speak to me of your beauty, grace, mercy and faithfulness. Reveal yourself to us in these days as we have never known you before. Not so much in signs and wonders as in the incredible notion that we could know you intimately. Let the heart of Christ beat the cadence of our lives.
Amen.
