The chosen

I am currently in the middle of The Chosen by Chaim Potok. I was going to wait until I finished to give a review, but there are some real thought provoking ideas in the first parts of the book that I felt I needed to comment on before they are cold in my mind.

Summary,
This book is from the point of view of a 15 year old Jewish boy in Brooklyn during WWII. It starts out telling about a baseball game where he gets hit in the face with a line drive while pitching. He spends a week in the hospital because a piece of his glasses gets stuck in his eye. This experience, amoung other things, makes him realize exactly how much he has taken for granted in his life.

I had a similar experience about 2 years ago when my son was born. At first he looked extremely healthy and well developed, but we soon discovered that he had a somewhat rare condition where his rectum did not finish developing and had not created an opening where the feces could come out. This could cause a lot of problems if not taken care of immediately and so he and I were flown to Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City. I was feeling a little picked on when we discovered the problem. But after spending several days in the NICU and finding out that his condistion could have been much worse and that only a minor surgery was necessary to rectify the problem; I witnessed people with so many more difficulties than I had. As I looked at children that would probably never be able to leave the hospital, and then looked at my son, I was humbled. There is so much that I take for granted.

Reading this book reminded me of this experience, and how precious life is and how many wonderful blessings I truly do have, even if life is not perfect.