The peril of taking things for granted

Generally speaking, I don't have much trouble sleeping at night.  In most cases, very soon after my head hits the pillow I drift off into the land of Nod.  I do realise that there are a significant number of people for whom sleeping does not come easy, and night-time can be very trying.  My problem, on occasions, is the opposite - I sometimes find myself drifting off when I should be wide awake!  Early in my days as a Minister I was visiting an elderly gentleman.  We were sitting in front of a glowing coal fire and despite my best efforts I just could not keep my eyes open!

So going to sleep isn't often a problem for me.  That's not to say that I don't usually wake up a few times during the night.  Because it's not always easy to get straight back to sleep again after waking, I have developed a technique which helps.  I get out of bed, visit the loo (even if I don't feel the need) and when I get back to bed I can almost always get straight back to sleep.  Having said that, I have developed the very bad habit of checking my phone to see if my brother in New Zealand has updated his Facebook page while I've been asleep!

One night recently I made my loo visit but when I turned on the tap to wash my hands there was no water supply!  In my half-asleep state I began to be concerned that somewhere in the house a water pipe had sprung a major leak, and went in search of a big pool of water.  I did try to encourage my wife Sue to help in the search but, not surprisingly in the early hours, she wasn't too keen.  Having discovered no sign of a leak I went back to bed.

To cut a long story short, I discovered the next day that there had been a main pipe burst somewhere in the local area, causing the water supply to a number of houses to be interrupted.  Looking back on this incident, I was reminded just how easily we can come to take for granted even the very precious things in life.  Water is life-giving, we cannot exist without it.  How fortunate we are in our part of the world to be able to turn on the tap at home and have instant clean water (it is estimated that around 800 million people in the world do not have access to clean water - surely a scandal).

Another incident which cause me to think along similar lines was when a church friend was suddenly rushed into hospital after suffering a heart-attack.  It came as a huge shock to everyone who knew him, especially as as far as anyone knew he seemed so fit and healthy.  Thanks to the excellent medical services (and much prayer), he is now home again and beginning the road to recovery.  Yet the whole incident was a reminder both of how fragile life is and also how we should never take life for granted.

So that's been the big lesson for me this past couple of weeks.  Appreciate all that I have, and never take any of it for granted.  As a friend once reminded me, we need to cultivate an attitude of gratitude.