I Am Surprised

I Am Surprised

By John W. Vander Velden

When I stand where I stand and look about my world, surveying my place in it all, I am left wondering.  If I take the time to consider all my successes and failures, I find myself surprised at the place I find myself...today.

I understand that step by step, forward and backward as well, my journey has shaped me into who I have become.  Along the way I have always felt it my obligation to take my advances with humility while accepting responsibility for my failings, for I understand that I am but human.  Acknowledging that if I have any talents at all, they are the results of gifts given for my use by a power far beyond me.  While honestly recognizing my weakness helps me to accept mistakes made by others.  And so I tend to judge those around me less harshly than I judge myself. 

Yet when I survey where I stand...today...I am surprised.

Though I often dwell on all the unfulfilled aspirations, the years spent with only modest progress, I need to stop and look at the whole of it.   For if I consider the things I have done, the places I have seen, the work I have accomplished, the people I have met...I am astonished.

So I look forward and cannot know what lies ahead, but if what lies behind is any indication, when I scan the place I will stand one day in the future...I will be surprised...

For my GOD has brought me this far, and HE will carry me through all my tomorrows...that that won’t surprise me a bit.

9-22-2018 (269 Words)