How are you doing today? If you are reading this, you are part of a miracle group; you are alive. I know; at times, we may wish for different circumstances in our lives. Yet, to be alive really is a miracle. I have no idea how plants, animals, and people come alive-and stay alive through many challenges.
During an excavation between 1963–1965, archaeologists discovered date palm seeds in clay jars from the location of Herod the Great's cliffside desert palace ruins called Masada in Israel. (This place is interesting to check out just for itself!)
The seeds were carbon dated and estimated to be from 155 BC to 64 CE. Their trees may have lived during the time of Christ! In 2005, scientists decided to germinate one of the seeds. They carefully nurtured it with moisture and fertilizer, and it sprouted.
This male palm, named Methuselah, after the oldest man in the Bible, grew tall and healthy. Other ancient seeds found in Qumran, the area of the Dead Sea Scrolls, also grew a female tree; they named it Hanna. They pollinated the female tree with the male tree and they are now getting an abundant date harvest. They are alive! You can find references for this on You Tube. Just Google Judean Date Palm. So interesting!
I feel like a small child with a new fascination-that of living amid a living world. Every blade of grass is alive. Sometimes I feel like I am seeing things for the first time. Abundant life breathes through our forests, farms, deserts, mountains, waters, and plains. The plants actually take in our carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen for us. What a plan! Everything flourishes in abundant variety.
I don't see how any of this could exist without a living, loving God!
I want to lift my eyes and heart above the clamor and chaos of the world's hate to discover a greater, living picture.
A new friend, who is becoming very dear to me, is blind; yet, she takes on life; she participates in groups and with friends; she learns new things and tries new outside adventures to different stores and such-on her own. She inspires me to get off the couch and drive to the store. (That's another topic, and we won't talk about that right now.)
Anyway, she recommended listening to Dr. Mary C. Neal, who got her kayak stuck at the bottom of a powerful waterfall in Chile and was under water for 30 minutes while the pressure broke some of her bones and then ejected her out of her kayak. As a doctor, she describes the impossibility of life after such a trauma, but she lives with all mental faculties working perfectly.
God comforted her through it all and showed her the importance of love. Her story is also portrayed, along with Don Piper and Captain Dale Black, in Angel Studios' movie, After Death. According to many stories I have watched, we are alive after death, just like Jesus told us we would be.
Every day counts. Life here is important. We have a purpose every day. Even if you are in a hospital or a prison right now, you are valuable to God. Each day is a day to cherish this life and share God's life with others.
God has never failed to answer my prayer when I asked Him to bring along a person to help. Each has been with people I did not know. I need to begin praying that way again. It brings back good memories, and it was a fun adventure.
Just as a closing thought, would you join me for a cup of tea and a cookie or carrot, whatever you prefer, and take time to enjoy all the living things and people in your life, including yourself?
Being alive brings hope when we connect with the Life Giver. I like the verse where Jesus explained: "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly," (John 10:10, emphasis mine).
I'd like for all of us to experience that abundant life. We are alive; that is a good start!
Sue Carlisle grew up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. An enrolled member of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, her passion is to encourage people to look at creation and see our awesome Creator. Sue is author of Walking with the Creator Along the Narrow Road (see IndianLife.org). She and her husband, Wes, now live in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
