The Lord has given me this day. What shall I do with it? Do you ever ask that? I have for years. You might ask why; then you might ask where asking leads, and then you might ask …
As a very young child, home life was brutal, but God gave me a mother who cared – cared more about her children than herself, more about keeping us safe than anything in her universe, money, prestige, comfort, how she was seen. Her mission was protection; absent that, I would not be.
Years on, near misses deepened my appreciation for a loving God who, while tolerant of my errors, excesses, and recklessness, never departed me. Like those footsteps in the sand, two pairs gone to one, it was not that he abandoned me, but that – in those times of near-fatal error – he carried me.
When we are young, we think we are immortal, because – short of a few insightful “old souls” – we have yet to see mortality up close, how thin the line between this world and that is. Gradually, by God’s Grace, we witness mortality, and seeing we grow, reflect, learn, apply what we have learned.
At 23, sure of everything and studying in Europe, I ventured behind the Iron Curtain, spent considerable time in Soviet-dominated Poland and elsewhere. Like stepping into a movie set, I saw “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” destroyed, good people imprisoned, violence on streets.
The next year, like a foolish moth drawn to fire, I did it again, spent time with people in Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union, all visibly oppressed, and most visibly depressed. I stayed with a Solidarity leader’s family, then was suddenly in trouble myself.
Only because God protects fools and innocents, good Poles helped me, and I got back out through East Germany, despite poor decisions and bad luck – allowing me to sit here writing today.
Two years later, on an excursion from law school, I travelled to India’s most rural reaches to work with the “Untouchables,” the lowest “caste” in that impoverished nation. Within days of arriving in rural Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, I watched a violent death and – as we do – changed.
Over several months, being strange, I got a serious, unidentifiable virus. In a week, that nameless virus reduced me from vigorous and healthy to barely here, then – like that – it was gone. Once again, in the nick of time, a loving God decided there was more for me to do, saved me.
On the day we recall as “9-11,” I might as easily have been in my wedge at the Pentagon, but instead was boarding a plane from DC for Phoenix, speaking to law enforcement. Twice that day a merciful God spared me. My plane was not taken, and when my wedge was hit by the plane that left 45 minutes after mine departed DC, I was not in those spaces. Life could have been so different.
Later, serving as Colin Powell’s Assistant Secretary, responsible for operations in 70 countries, from counternarcotics and aviation to police training, I was in Iraq multiple times, later Afghanistan, Kosovo, Colombia many times, and other vacation spots. In each place, He protected me.
So, from errors of my youth and early commitments (military and civilian) to simple, daily choices, God has rescued me many times from my folly, set me right. My sense is – and it grows – that He still has a purpose for me, for all of us, or we would not still be here.
This is where that first paragraph comes back: The Lord has given me this day. What shall I do with it? Do you ever ask? I do. You now know why. The mission we share – whatever your history – is how best to use this glorious gift, another day. May we find high purpose and pursue it, equal to the day.
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What does this stir in you?