Yesterday evening as I was riding my lawnmower, I was sweating and swatting at flying bugs as they buzzed in and out of my eyes and ears.

But a smile crossed my face.

Although mowing and yard work are not among my favorite things to do, I have to admit that it felt good to smell fresh cut grass and look out across a green lawn instead of one that is beige.

My mower, and this is no exaggeration, sat unused for more than a year in my garage because of the drought.

It’s amazing to me that I could go a whole year without mowing the yard and in the past nine days I have had to mow it twice! What a difference a little rainfall can make.

My Dad was kind enough to cut the yard for us in June while we were in Canada and he had to dust off the cobwebs and bring my mower back into working order as it had sat in the garage for so long without being used. A new battery was needed, but soon it was up and running again.

As I was mowing yesterday, I was thinking about a lot of things.

First and foremost, I was thinking about how thankful I am for the rain. It’s one of those things that you really don’t appreciate till it’s gone.

I was also thinking about how thankful I am to have a riding lawnmower to cut the grass. With a yard measuring 1.6 acres, using a push mower is more of a physical challenge than I’m looking for on the weekend.

I watched the sun sinking in the western sky as I mowed around and around and around. Each time I came around, the brightly glowing burnt orange star was a little lower in the sky until finally it had dipped beneath the horizon. It was a beautiful thing to watch and I thought about how fortunate I am to live in such a beautiful place, such a peaceful place.

As I keep a close eye on the news of the world, the events of this past week in the Middle East have given me an even deeper appreciation of the peace and security we enjoy in this country.

My wife has a friend who lives in Israel and her family had to evacuate their home because Hezbollah is firing rockets into their neighborhood.

It is one thing to have to leave your home because of the threat of a hurricane or some other natural disaster, but it is hard to imagine having to evacuate because your country is in a state of war with its next-door neighbor.

It’s difficult to imagine the kind of terror that would bring – not knowing if the next rocket might be coming through your living room window.

The nice thing about mowing a big yard is that the activity is simple and repetitive and so you have a lot of time to think.

There is a lot of turmoil and uncertainty in the world right now and it makes me wonder just how long this peace and security, which we enjoy in this country, will continue. It is something we should not take for granted.

In a world that’s rapidly changing and the news becomes more and more frightening, I think that it’s more important than ever for people to live today as though it’s their last.

Yesterday, I watched our children singing and dancing at church, and then we came home and played games together and made mud pies in the sandbox. When it finally got little cooler late in the evening, I mowed the lawn and watched the sun go down. When I came in the house after mowing the yard, my one-year-old son was in the bathtub and my four-year-old daughter, dressed in her pajamas, had a surprise tea party prepared for me.

I am hopeful that we will all enjoy peace and prosperity for a very long time, but if something terrible happens and there comes a day that is the "last day" – I hope it’s a day like yesterday.