JUDY EMERSON Author and Personal Coach

I have unwisely lived approximately 99.8% of my life thus far by the presumption I was in charge. That’s an underestimation. I pretended to be an independent, self-contained director of my own fate, nervously or confidently arranging my world—a little general calling the shots—”I’ll speak this line, eat that, move in the other direction, sit down, stand up, blink and smile and scratch my elbow”. I have rarely asked for information, permission, or guidance. When guidance was offered, I almost always repudiated the gift. I stubbornly insisted I was a self-made woman, with no help required.

I’ve been claiming to be “running the show” for most of my 72 years by now—the number of days remaining is far less than what has gone before. That’s just the math.

These days, my attention has been drawn to the fact that nothing happens entirely by my design. I’ve admitted at last that I’m powerless to control more than my own choices this very moment—and my record is not impressive.

I took a walk this morning, every cell of my body powered by fuel I didn’t generate, moving muscles designed by a master artist (not me!), initiated and kept in motion by the firing of ganglia that are a mystery beyond my understanding, however I take the credit.

My body is blessed to receive the generous provisions of a natural world where food miraculously springs up out of dirt mixed with water that has fallen from the sky. Yeah, I know that’s an oversimplification. God invented the system for it, and farmers participate. I take these things for granted.

I’ve bartered my “labor” (a small contribution to this culture’s economic system) to earn money that enabled me to drive my very own car (what luxury!) to the store and buy groceries. Some of it I personally cooked and shoveled into my mouth. But I was loaned this body I reside inside and the life force that charges it, with the strengths, the brain function, and the propensities I am the unwitting recipient of—that enabled my participation in this life. How astonishing, when you think of it, that I was one lucky child, out of only 4% of the world’s population, who was accidentally born in one of the richest countries on this planet. Why me, to be so blessed?

I never ordered up the sun rising every morning, or setting every night. I don’t know how it is I’ve always been provided a soft place to lay my head at night, to rest with no interruptions from bombs going off, inside a house with running water and ample food stowed inside the electric refrigerator. Has it ever occurred to me what a miracle is the ice in my glass?

Anyway, I digress. It’s just that there are so many blessings stuffed into every crevice of my privileged life, I don’t know where to leave off. But back to this morning. The food that I chewed and swallowed was created specifically to be suited to my human body’s needs. I did not design this system of the world’s exquisite inter-functionality.

I can take no responsibility for the genius behind saliva and teeth and tongue, and muscles in my jaws working in perfect cooperation to masticate snacks and sip drinks that are abundantly provided to nourish and hydrate me. I’m unconscious of the design of my esophageal muscles moving sustenance into my stomach, triggering the flow of digestive chemicals (how are they formulated? where do they come from?) to be automatically provided—without my say so. I have no idea how nutrients are extracted and delivered through my bloodstream. I don’t know how this is done. I did not make it happen. God is doing a miraculous work here—not just once on the occasion of the Big Bang, but every moment I’ve drawn breath. Breathing, there’s another subject. The gift of air.

And what about the heart muscle? Every minute beating, pushing those elements (oxygen! amino acids! I have no idea what million other things!) along the routes to each individual cell, delivering precisely what each cell needs. I’m so very glad it works, but it wasn’t me who put in the order for it!

How does the recipient cell know how to absorb what it needs, utilize it, and then release the byproducts? Cells designed to carry away the trash do their job well. The process of constant moment-by-moment, cell-by-cell replenishment, stimulation and cleansing is enacted on my behalf, for my well-being.

Too often I’ve thought, “Finally!” (I don’t trust that word any more, there is no finality on this plane of existence until we pass on to whatever comes after death.) “Finally”, I mistakenly think, “I have accomplished becoming some imagined epitome of existence, a feat to be admired”. My soul knows better, but too often I’ve forgotten that, “rested on my laurels”, in the belief I was a complete, self-made person, “at last”.  Which I thought might, if true, have put me out of reach of the painful struggle and hardship of not knowing all the answers. So I’ve deluded myself, my ego leaning into that self-reassuring fantasy for great swathes of time, until God regains my attention with the truth or my ordinary state. I am, every moment, a work in process. I have much to learn. And more shall be revealed, guaranteed.

When I think I’m standing on my own two feet, I need to remember that those feet, and the body they’re attached to, are a gift I can be grateful to possess and operate and care for, for a little while. This body that is balanced and resourced and maintained by grace I can receive but never author. What bountiful good is shoveled into my life each moment, supplying the life force that flashes through my neurons and buzzes through my veins! I am immersed, awash, swimming in the love of my Creator, my benefactor. What makes me think I can direct the show? I don’t know the first line of the script. I’m grateful, for today, to have a part in the play. The real director knows what he’s doing.