Heart of Wisdom

So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.  

✙ Ps 90:12 ✙

I have a heart condition. Part of it is my own fault—not enough exercise, too much food—and part of it is inherited. It's not as bad as I thought it was at first, but it's still a fact of life I live with. One of the consequences, however, is that it's given me a new way to measure time. Every day, twice a day, I have pills I need to take. This is now one of the ways I measure my days, in fact. And every Saturday evening I open my pill organizer and get out my bottles and fill up each slot, morning, and evening, Sunday through Saturday. This is one of the ways I now measure my week. And every month I make a trip to the pharmacy to have my prescriptions refilled—yet another, longer unit of time made more measurable by pills.

There was a time when I did not fully appreciate all those who needed to measure time like this. Now I understand. It's not the entirety of who I am, but it is part of who I am. With age has come a certain wisdom—namely, that I am vulnerable. It's just ironic that the "heart of wisdom" talked about in Psalm 90:12 isn't the strong heart of my youth. In its somewhat weakened state, my heart has learned about its mortality. Perhaps weakness and wisdom coëxist better than strength and wisdom.

Help me, Lord, appreciate your gift of life anew each morning. Teach me to number my days, not tediously and not out of regret, but as a measure of how much you love me, all that you teach me, and all that you have given me to share with others; in the Name of the One who taught me to pray: Our Father...