So I have begun Team of Rivals and boy is it a thriller. Ok, so it isn’t exactly the type of thriller that most people would think a thriller is. But to me, it is a thriller. I am amazed at how many of the people of this era faced death regularly. We take for granted these days that a mother that goes into the hospital will deliver a healthy baby. We rarely think that the baby will not make it. And even more rare is the mother who does not make it. But this simply was not the case a century ago. John Owen faced the death of his children. Lincoln was no exception. The three dearest women in his life all died and led to much sober deliberation in his life. He lost his mother at a young age. He then lost his beloved sister who died while giving birth to a child. And then he lost his love interest Ann Rutledge do to illness. And this shaped him in a way that made him the man he was.

How we take for granted health and life. I am here in Toronto with my father-in-law who is dying of lung cancer and I see how he has changed through time. And despite his illness, he is 73 years old. He has lived a long life. This just was not the case not that long ago. This has made me realize just how much our lives are a vapor as James writes in James 1.