Nelson feels the fragility of life and in this journal entry he posts his thoughts—which lead him to make another gratitude list.

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August 18, 2022

My neck is starting to feel a little bit better. I have had this pain or crick for over a week now and normally, I wouldn’t mention it but everything could be a potential infection and end me up at the ER on a Saturday night and eventually admitted to the hospital, which is the last place I want to be.

That being said, I’m thankful when something works itself out without the hospital visit. This whole thing gives me lots to be thankful for. I realize the potential for pain and hardship where I didn’t before. I see the pitfalls where before I saw nothing. I look at life totally different now and see anything as a potential pitfall for a human being to fall into.

We are so blessed with our good health and should never take it for granted. We are fragile little people standing at the end of death and are in life for only a precarious, little while. Nothing of our own strength keeps or gets us to safety.

God alone keeps us healthy and alive, and we would do well to spend time in the place of gratitude instead of just marching along like nothing will ever change. There are all these systems in the body that work together, and it’s a wonder they do. Just the slightest part being off sends the whole thing into a chain reaction where nothing works right.

I have learned that over and over, the long, hard, slow way. We are fragile at best. Our lives are short and we are lucky for the health we have when we have it. Thank you, Lord, that I’m feeling better today. I am aware that it might not last and that to have just a little bit of health is a lot.

Thank you that there might be some hope to get the loan for the triplex we are wanting to buy. Thank you for doing miracles like that, for giving us the money we have. Thank you for the people who have given and who pray. There are so many.

Thank you for the protein shakes from Lindsay and the food Annso makes. She is the best gift you have ever given me on this planet. I can’t thank you enough for the woman she is, for her endless service, her intelligence and cool demeanor–so the opposite of the way I am wired, high-strung and riddled with anxiety.

Thank you that opposites attract but that we are still the same to some extent.

Thank you for arranging to get the catheter out today from into my right lung. One more step to being free of all these medical gadgets.

Thank you that full recovery is possible. Thank you for your leading and guiding. Thank you for Rochester and the home it is becoming for us. I pray for your leading as we settle more and more here.

Thank you for the baby boy and his health and happy disposition. We are so fortunate to have him and for the miracle he is.

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“Let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him.” (1 Corinthians 7:17)