It's Great to Be Alive

Isn't this an incredible view!   Not the big bald guy (although he is cute) but the view from the top of Clinch Mountain is breath taking. Standing there with my lovely wife is one of those times when you think it just doesn't get any better than this.  I got to cross this mountain many times in the 1980's as I traveled back and forth between Lexington and Milligan.

While I was at Milligan I met a friend for life.  When we were freshman his favorite words were "It's Great to Be Alive".  Tim Brokaw must have said that a million times that year.  Here's the deal, I never heard him say that while we were standing on top of some beautiful vista like this one.  In fact many times it was just before, during, or after he had put smelly sweaty basketball gear in to wash as the manager of the basketball team.  Tim was a great manager because he just wanted to do everything he could to help make the team better, even when it included sweaty, smelly laundry.  But those kind of jobs rarely get recognition, yet everytime you asked him how he was doing, his response was "It's Great to Be Alive". 

It was thirty-one years ago that I first that I first heard Tim say that and I am just now starting to really understand what it could mean and learning to believe iteven when I am dealing with smelly stuff.  It is easy to stand on the moutain top and breathe in the fresh air and say "It's Great to Be Alive".  It's much harder to believe that when your child is running around out of control making questionable life decisions.  It's hard to say that when your marriage is really struggling, or your finances are out of whack, or you hate your job, you fill in your own blanks

I want to spend my life on the mountain tops breathing in fresh air and looking over a beautiful view.  However, it's only by living through some dismal valleys that we can really recognize the beauty of the mountain top.  Jesus reminds us in the Sermon on the Mount that "your Father in heaven, causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

It has been critical for me to realize over the last few years of struggling that God loves me in the valley just as much as he does on the mountain top. He loves me when the sun is shining as well as when it is raining.  He loves me when I am following Him as closely as I can as well as when I am going my own way.

What I have learned is it's great to be alive when I choose to believe it is great to be alive!  It's my choice!  I'd like to live on the mountain top, but I'm trying to choose to be happy even when it's raining!