Blessing we often forget to count

It is surprising at least, that I had any amount of profound thought from two days worth of daytime television. However, I did. Oprah, for two days in a row has had very sobering programmes of families who are so much less fortunate that mine.

The first show featured a little girl, of seven, who suffered with schizophrenia. The parents chose to cope with it by living in two seperate apartments and raising their younger 'normal' child seperately and obviously living seperately at night, swapping and alternating each day. Living with such an intense love for their daughter yet having the daily stress of knowing she cannot be left alone or by herself with anyone else, is just mindblowing to imagine.

The second Oprah show featured the stories of child after child who was abducted. Distraught parents, weary from the fight, some for 20 years now, begged fellow Americans to help them find their children. Parents who had last tucked their baby into bed and woken up to an empty cot, another who had waved off their little girl as she went to the shop with a friend, never to return. Their stories seem like material movies are made of, but to imagine actually living out these scenarios and having to carry on with any sort of decent life, seems unthinkable.

I sat watching these shows with Abigail playing happily, healthy and right next to me. every now an then I'd allow my thought to wander to what I would do if it was me that woke up in the morning with my precious baby missing. I had to stop myself of course becuase the thoughts that followed were not very Christian, to say the least.

I am glad I have a fresh perspective, even if it will only last a little while, while memories of sick and lost children flash through my mind. Thank God I have a very different story to tell. And I pray I never take that forgranted because some parents just don't have the luxury of being able to do that.