When life gets rough, I remember what my father told me one brutally cold morning when I was a kid. We were walking in the woods through deep snow and I told him I couldn't go any further. He said "Yes you can - you have a lot of spirit," and he kept on walking. When I complained of pain and exhaustion from the cold, he said with a big smile "Isn't it great? It means you're alive."

Thanks Dad. Maybe it's not such a bad thing to be reminded on occasion that being alive is truly a gift from God - even when you're shivering from the cold in the middle of July.