That Could Have Been Yesterday

I am 23 years old.  I'm a little more than half way through college.  I have dreams of being an astronaut, a teacher, a singer, and a mother (I don't intend on being all of those, just various possibilities).  I have goals to become better at running, to learn how to bake, to figure out who my favorite bands are by actually paying attention to who sings my favorite songs, and to become a friendlier person.  I have an ever growing bucket list and a reading list that I will probably never finish no matter how hard I try.  I'm alive.

Idris: I've been looking for a word.  A big, complicated word but so sad. I've found it now.
Doctor: What word?
Idris: Alive.  I'm alive.
Doctor: Alive isn't sad.
Idris: It's sad when it's over.  I'll always be here. But this is when we talked. And now, even that has come to an end.
        (Doctor Who, Season 6, Episode 4)

People tell you that you have all the time in the world.  That's a lie.  You have only till the end of your life.  For me, that could have been yesterday.  I've never thought about it that way before.  "The rest of my life" and "all the time in the world" felt like nearly the same thing.  I believed I had so much time to fill and had made so many plans to fill it.  I'm sure I do still have a lot of time to fill and will probably have the chance to carry out most of the plans I've made.  I've just been made more aware of the fact that I might have run out of time yesterday.  This makes today so much more a blessing.

I crashed yesterday.  I crashed bad.  As the car slide towards the steep drop on one side of the road, I prayed.  There was nothing else I could do.  Somehow, the car changed direction, going off the other side, flipping, and landing on the roof.  I saw dirt, broken glass, and a shattered watermelon.  I crawled out and looked at the car.  Everything inside of me told me that someone in a crash like should be dead, yet there I stood, heart racing, hyperventilating, but unharmed.  A day later, bruises have formed on my knees from crawling out of the car and my neck is a little sore.  I'm still amazed to be alive.

I know God was watching over me yesterday.  He saved my life, possibly so I can fulfill my own plans and more than likely so I can fulfill His plans for me which I don't yet know.  But more important than plans and to-do lists is today.  From this experience, I hope to be able to keep one thing- to wake up every day the same way I woke up today.  As I open my eyes, I hope I remember that my last day could have been yesterday, that today is a special gift from the Lord, and to be sure I live accordingly.

I only have till the end of my life, and that could have been yesterday.  So today will be about friends and family and finding reasons to laugh.  Today is a day for seeing the blessings with which I'm surrounded and being so grateful that I can't stop praying.  I'm not afraid of running out of time, I'm only afraid of not recognizing until I run out that time is a gift that I can give to others to make their time better.