A few years ago, I had a series of events happen that changed my life, and my perspective.  In August 2013, I had the first of several life threatening episodes.  Over the next year, I would be admitted into the hospital several times with symptoms similar to someone that was suffering from sepsis.  The first time that I was taken to the hospital, was by far the worst.  The doctors told my wife if she had waited in longer to bring me in, there is no way I would have survived.  With each incident, I was admitted into ICU, and remained there for several days.  Each time I was fighting for my life as my internal organs were shutting down, by blood pressure had dropped to unsafe levels, my potassium was too high, my heart rate was too fast, and so much more.  With all these symptoms, the doctors never found a source of infection in my body.

I am about three years out now from my last episode.  The doctors still have no idea what caused the episodes, and I do not know if this is something that has passed or if I will have to deal with similar circumstances somewhere in the future.  What I do know, is those moments changed my life.  They gave me a perspective that I did not have before.

Those moments gave me a glimpse of just how fragile life can be.  Intellectually, I knew that, but I have a greater appreciation now that I have experienced being so close to death.  As I stated earlier, the first episode I had was the worst.  I remember during that time that it was very difficult to get my blood pressure to come up.  I was incoherent, and don’t remember a lot, but I do remember the concern of my attending nurse when they had tried several things and my blood pressure would not come up.  I am convinced that God intervened and saved my life.  I live with this idea that I should not be here today.  That changes how you see everything.

There are things in your life that have given you the benefit of a different perspective.  Maybe it wasn’t life threatening.  Perhaps it even seems trivial.  But none-the-less it changed how you saw someone, a situation, a problem you were having, etc.  The things in our life that give us a different perspective are invaluable.  We should be thankful every time this happens.