Immunity is on our minds. The ability to ward off danger is superfluous if we consider ourselves removed from any threat. But once we are close enough to hear its raspy breath, protection spikes in value. 

 

Recently I asked a few people what they are immune to. They paused to consider. Sometimes our cognizance of peril keeps us too flustered to notice the soft spaces. My own answer to the inquiry is atheism. In sixty some years on this planet there have been winds that bashed, and waves that pounded the boat that is my life. There were months of unrelenting storms, alternating with stretches of placid calm. Yet regardless of those vacillating circumstances, Doubt has never taken a seat beside me. I questioned my own stamina, and railed at the unkind world. I shivered at the foggy future, and thunked my forehead in despair about the past. 

 

But God never left me. 

 

I don't consider myself more clever than people for whom faith withers. It is not because of sheer will that belief has taken up residence in my heart. As with the immunity that protects me from disease, I am the beneficiary, not the first line responder. I cannot take credit for either good health nor trust in God. 

 

But my gratitude is profound.