Every day I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I assure you this is not exaggeration or hyperbole.
I'm talkin,' every. single. day.
I've done this for at least the past couple of decades, maybe longer.
Most of the time I have one for breakfast or during a midday training session at the gym or as a late evening snack. It's just part of my daily rhythm.
Yesterday, I was up before the sun, assembling yet another addition to my now legendary gastronomic streak, when there in the predawn stillness it hit me: this might be my last PB & J.
I considered how many times I'd done it before: how many pieces of bread I've mindlessly slathered and stuck together, never really aware of what I was walking into on those days; of just how much was in the balance, of all that lay ahead of me.
I likely made one the day I met my wife,
another when I found out that I was going to be a father for the first time,
another when we bought our first house,
one when we got the job that would take us away from family in the Northeast,
still another when I found out that my father had died,
one when I was fired from my supposed dream job,
yet another when I had a blog post go viral and change the trajectory of my ministry forever.
Our ordinary days have a way of lulling us into forgetting just how fragile and unpredictable it all is; how packed with promise and possibility every single day can be, and yet how close we are at any second to it all being over in an instant too.
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