Was He Lucky Or What?

  

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip to Hiroshima when the atomic bomb hit the city. Somehow, he survived; 146,000 people didn’t.

  Though injured, he escaped the destruction and walked his way home…. to Nagasaki. Three days later he was back to work, where his coworker is berated him as crazy when he said that one bomb had destroyed a whole city. At that very moment the second atomic bomb hit. 

  He once again survived the blast.

  He survived not one but two atomic detonations! He survived not only the horrific blast but the deadly aftereffect of the radiation.  Cancer would eventually claim his life, but not for sixty-four more years. He would live to the age of ninety-three.

  Some may look at Yamaguchi and think that he was one of the unluckiest people in the world.

  Or is he the luckiest?

  As we think about what we are thankful for we often think of the blessings. The good things we experience. But sometimes are biggest blessing are what we survive. What we make it through. What we overcome.

  Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. James 1:2-3 

Be thankful for what you have. But also be thankful what you have gone through that has made you stronger, helped you to grow and made you better, even when those things were hard and horrible.