Thankful To Be Alive

No matter how bad my life gets,

Or how hard it is to rise from my sleep,

One thing I’ll remember today,

Is my life’s the life to keep.

No matter how desperate my times become,

Or how absurd I genuinely feel,

I can know in my heart of hearts,

I have the ability to keep it real.

No matter the mood that comprises me,

Or the thoughts and actions that engage,

I can know—my soul to myself,

I cherish the fact I can gracefully age.

No matter how hard my days seem,

Negotiating the tribal grind,

I will experience the Presence of the Lord,

Whenever I open space in my mind.

No matter how long my spirit endures,

And no matter how ghastly my experience seems,

I can know that my life ensures,

I still have the ability for dreams.

No matter how deeply depressed I get,

In this moment it’s presently assured,

I can know with God I’m set,

Only with God can I be cured.

Now it comes to the starkest sense,

As I view my life and my drive,

All my experiences put together,

And I wonder for I am still alive.

The Simplest of Blessing

Without a shadow of a doubt I am convinced the simplest blessing is to be simply alive. For many today that will be harrowing and cruel, as they battle their vicious black dogs and dark nights of their souls. We have been there, perhaps. Indeed, we may very well return. (And we pray God gives us courage and strength to endure once more—and he will.)

In the meantime, any moment we like we can thank God we are still alive.

We can take life back to its raw basics, imagining complexities of affect withering into the wilderness of our convenient amnesia, and enjoy the simplicity of breathing, of looking, of grace just to exist.

The courage it takes to attend to a life that is morbidly up-and-down is significant.

Those who battle with many nuances of the black dog know very well the challenges to be thankful for being alive. Courage is necessary; courage to fight the good fight of the faith. And in such modalities of moral courage we learn most of all the simple things are not to be taken for granted. The simple things, retained, are life for us; and life abundant.

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Nothing generates joy like being thankful for being alive. When life is that simple, and we can know we lay in the lap of God’s will by existing simply, life has basis to begin again—a fresh new day.

© 2012 S. J. Wickham.