Yes, I’m 43 now. And while I’m feeling highly middle – aged, I’m also feeling grateful.
I’m grateful that a young couple – a hard working and brilliant man from Ponce de Leon, FL, who excelled in football and had the smarts to major in chemistry at Morris Brown College, and a beautiful intelligent lady from Columbus, GA who skipped a grade to attend that same college – starting out their married life together as the young man attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Dentistry in the early 1970s, thought it was a good idea to have a
child.
I’m grateful that they didn’t give up on that child when he attempted to drive them crazy.
I’m grateful that God allowed that child to grow, to remain healthy, and make millions of mistakes, continually covering them all with grace.
I’m grateful that I’ve been given models and mentors over the years that have inspired me to become the man I can be, rather than the man I happen to become. Men like my dad, Marcus E. Paul. Bozie Allen Johnson. Marl Campbell. Wilkes Kemp. Robert Sherwood. Alphonso Jackson, Sr. Steve Alessi. Eugene Williams. Ben Green.
I’m grateful to see an age that people like MLK and JFK never saw.
I’m acutely aware at this moment that people more deserving, more talented and who sacrificed more were provided less of that which I now have.
There are two gifts that outweigh all others.
The first is eternal life.
The second is the time leading up to eternity.
Thank God, I have the first.
Now to make the best of the second.
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