Sorry to bring up Christmas so early, because I am one of those who doesn’t want to hear Christmas Carols until maybe, three days before Christmas at the earliest, but here I am writing about it.  Must’ve been something I drank last night I guess.  The truth is, I care not a lick if I receive any presents on Christmas. Nadda.  Zilch.  Don’t care. However, I do like to give them to others and watch them smile, and then, I go to church and worship the birth of Christ while singing Joy to the World as loud as I can, annoying the happy family in front of me who can’t hear their own voices because of me.

You see, I have already received my gifts:

Although my eyes aren’t very good, I can still see and do some reading.

Although my knees are beat up, I can still walk in the sunshine or rain, and run up hills but not as fast as I would like.

Although I feel momentary thoughts of weakness, I keep myself physically strong with challenging exercise, and emotionally strong with prayer and humility.

Although my ears ring 24 hours a day, purposely trying to scramble my brain, I can still hear enough to function well and not get people too frustrated with me. The ringing it seems, is a reminder to me of that day in 2013. A price to pay for being saved.

Although I certainly am no genius, I still have a brain that functions enough to shelter and recall my favorite memories and to think and create stories at least some people like.

Although I have struggled to master my field at times, I have been blessed with an education that has allowed me to use my skills in medicine to make a difference in other people’s lives, who depend on me to do so.

Although I may not be very good at speeches, I have been given the gift of writing, so that I can perhaps make a reader laugh, or smile, or maybe travel to different places he or she has never been to, or never will go, without my written words flying them there on a non-stop flight of the Carson F-35.

Although I have loved, I have also been lucky to have been loved back, despite my faults.  I have been disliked, and sometimes it seems, hated —but I no longer care, because I have done my best in life with no malice in my heart.

I have lost a lot, and felt excruciating pain deep within my soul, but that has been soothed by the gentle but mighty hands of God, so that I realize that the earthly pain I have felt, or feel, is nothing compared to what many others feel. 

Although at times I have felt a brief dip in my courage meter, I no longer am afraid of death, or fear of the unknown.

And yet, all of these gifts above are tiny compared to the one that is the most important: The Lord Jesus Christ did not allow me to die on April 10, 2013, when it was clear I had a 90% chance of death, suddenly, while taking care of patients.  He taught me that by the grace of God and his love for me, that despite my weaknesses and sin, I am somehow more valuable alive, and that I am saved through the Grace of God and the Lord Jesus Christ — because I am a believer.

And now, these words I have just typed, have awakened within me a desire to go to the kitchen and find my smooth liquid friend: Glenlivet 12, single malt scotch.

PS. That flower I found in my front bushes. She was lonely, trying to show herself to the world, and I had no idea this thing was hiding in my bushes, let alone, that she would flower in late October.

© SRCarson Publications 2023