Do me a favor, won’t you?
Go open up the door to your medicine cabinet and tell me what you see.
Does it house Tylenol and Motrin?
Some cold remedies?
Vitamins?
Perhaps some Benadryl or allergy medicine?
Maybe some basic first-aid supplies?
For many years I had an ordinary medicine cabinet, half-filled with common household remedies.
I went about my life never really acknowledging that small, unremarkable space.
Never pausing to give thanks.
Then all at once my medicine cabinet changed.
Suddenly it was packed to overflowing with prescriptions.
Plastic containers, bottles, syringes….precariously stacked, one on top of the other.
And one day as I cautiously opened that cupboard door, prepared for the avalanche, I was struck with the realization that I had taken my half-filled medicine cabinet for granted.
Many years had passed of me never really comprehending what I had.
Never fully appreciating the freedom that comes with good health.
And now I found myself in a very different place.
I had a sick child.
I was tied to hospitals and doctors.
Pharmacies.
Therapists.
An insurance policy.
I began to wonder if spontaneity had become a thing of the past.
If I would ever experience those happy-go-lucky days again.
My life had become a series of adrenaline rushes intermixed with deep pits of nausea.
The burden weighed heavily on me.
I was filled with regret.
Wishing I had lived those carefree years with more reckless abandon, throwing caution to the wind.
Embracing each new day and living life to its absolute fullest.
None of us desires to come to the last of our numbered days with regret.
I give thanks and receive joy.
