The World and Everything in It: January 7, 2025

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Congress takes a look at online sports betting, and it’s not a pretty view.

BLUMENTHAL: The amount of gambling is exploding.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, IVF from the perspective of the nascent lives suspended in time.

And later, the Carter funeral. You’ll meet some of the U.S. Air Force band and learn about its role in services today and this week.

VALADIE: We’re the musical soundtrack. And if you can imagine a movie without a musical soundtrack, it really loses a lot of its emotional underpinnings.

And WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney on the importance of living in the moment.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, January 7th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

REICHARD: Time for news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Election certification » President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory is now official.

Vice President Kamala Harris, in her capacity as president of the Senate, certified the results at the Capitol on Monday.

HARRIS:  The votes for president of the United States are as follows: Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes. Kamala D. Harris (cheers up for a second or two)

Harris joined a short list of other vice presidents who have overseen the confirmation of their own losses. Richard Nixon did it after losing to John F. Kennedy in 1960. Al Gore followed suit after the 2000 election.

HARRIS: Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes …

It was also the 4th anniversary of the Capitol riot in 2021, in which protestors burst into the Capitol building. And Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer remarked:

SCHUMER: We will never forget. We cannot forget … because democracy is sacred.

There were no incidents at the Capitol on Monday following a decisive election win for Trump in November.

Trudeau resigns » Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced his resignation after nearly a decade in power.

The decision bows to rising discontent over his leadership and growing turmoil within his government.

TRUDEAU:  This country deserves a real choice in the next election and it has become clear to me that if I'm having to fight internal battles, I cannot be the best option in that election.

His announcement follows the abrupt departure of his finance minister.

He plans to remain on the job until a new leader of the Liberal Party is chosen.

West Bank bus attack » In Israel:

SOUND: [Bus attack scene]

Government leaders are condemning a deadly attack on a bus carrying Israelis in the West Bank Monday.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer:

MENCER: Three Israelis were murdered, two women in their 60s and one man in his 40s. Eight people were wounded and of course families shattered. Terrorists opened fire on cars and a bus this morning in Al-Funduq. Our army is currently conducting a manhunt for the gunmen.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “settle accounts" with the attackers "and with everyone who assisted them."

Hamas praised the attack in a statement, but did not claim responsibility for it.

Gaza ceasefire talks » Meantime, Israel's phased withdrawal from southern Lebanon is going as-planned, according to the Biden administration.

Both Israel and the terror group Hezbollah agreed to withdraw from southern Lebanon as part of a mutual ceasefire agreement reached in November. The Lebanese army is filling the void.

Senior U.S. advisor Amos Hochstein told reporters Monday:

HOCHSTEIN: I have every confidence from what I saw today and what I get reports from the team on the ground, that things are going as they should be and I think the Lebanese army is doing its job very, very well.

The Biden administration is still pushing hard to broker a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel that would bring the remaining hostages held by the terror group home.

Blinken in Asia, North Korea missile test » North Korea test-fired another ballistic missile on Monday.

It reportedly traveled nearly 700 miles before splashing into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

Secretary of State Tony Blinken was in Seoul Monday for talks with South Korean allies. He told reporters:

BLINKEN: We condemn the DPRK’s missile launch just today, yet another violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions.

South Korean officials also denounced the launch as a provocation that poses a serious threat to peace and stability on the peninsula.

Winter weather » Snow, ice, and frigid winds have been blasting much of the country. A polar vortex that dipped south over the weekend is keeping an area stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the coast of Maine in its frosty grip.

Louisville, Kentucky Mayor Craig Greenberg said Monday:

GREENBERG: It is the largest single-day snowfall we’ve had in over 25 years here in Louisville. Very significant event.

Nearly a foot of snow has fallen on the city since Saturday.

Blizzard conditions slammed Kansas and Missourri with 45 mph winds.

And the National Weather Service extended winter storm warnings into this morning for several states from West Virginia to New Jersey.

And Richard Bann with the National Weather Service says attention is now turning to parts of the Southern Plains.

BANN:  We are looking at the potential for another system to take shape that could bring, uh, wintry weather to parts of Oklahoma and Texas.

But he said it’s still too early to predict the severity.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Congress considers what can be done to regulate sports gambling. Plus, an in vitro fertilization doctor has a change of heart.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 7th of January.

We’re so glad you’ve joined us today! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It: sports gambling.

If you follow sports, you likely hear a lot of this.

DRAFTKINGS: Action so good. Why bet NFL playoffs anywhere else?

VIVA LA STOOL: we've teamed up with our partners at DraftKings to give new customers $200 in bonus bets after you sign up and deposit and bet just $5.

KERNEY: Betting on sports adds a whole new level of excitement to any game you're watching, even a blowout

Sports betting companies spent more than a billion dollars on advertising in 2024. That same year by one estimate Americans bet around $150 billion.

REICHARD: The National Council on Problem Gambling says risky gambling was particularly bad during COVID lockdowns. They’ve leveled off since then, but public acceptance of sports betting continues to grow.

WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler has the story.

PAUL BUTLER: Gary Schneider was thirteen when he placed his first bet on sports.

SCHNEIDER: And I continued to do that until I was 18 years old. And I know that I got addicted at 18 years old.

Betting on sports seemed like a fun way to put his knowledge of sports to work. Long before online sports gambling came on the scene, Schneider called up a bookmaker in Jersey Shore to place his bets.

SCHNEIDER: And the bookmaker told me I won every single bet. From that point on, my goal was to bust many bookmakers, and I was chasing that illusion until I came at 40 when I crashed.

After 27 years of betting on sports, Schneider was buried in debt and suicidal.

Today, however, Schneider counsels gambling addicts…and serves as a board member for the advocacy group Stop Predatory Gambling.

The group’s National Director, Les Bernal, says gambling corporations are more sophisticated in their offerings and messaging.

BERNAL: They like send you text messages, if you haven't gambled today, like they'll send you, you know, two or $300 worth of free bets, you know, to keep you in action.

The rise of online sports betting is not just a recent technological phenomenon. It’s also a legal one. In 1992, Congress passed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. That law made sports betting illegal in the United States, with a handful of exceptions for states like Nevada and New Jersey.

But then in 2018, the Supreme Court struck down that law.

BERNAL: The Supreme Court did not endorse sports gambling, but they just said the way the law that prohibited commercialized sports gambling was written, you know, was unconstitutional, but that Congress still had the right to, you know, to prohibit sports gambling, just but had to do it a different way.

Congress left the issue open to the states, and within six years, 38 states and the District of Columbia legalized sports betting.

BERNAL: State governments, in partnership with these powerful gambling corporations, they acted with lightning speed to ram through sports gambling, online gambling, like just at an extreme pace, all driven in a very sophisticated National Public Affairs campaign, not because the public demanded it, but because of greed.

The lucrative partnership between state governments, gambling corporations, and sports leagues has since drawn scrutiny from Congress.

DURBIN: This meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee will come to order.

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin chairs the committee. Last month, Senators heard testimony about the effects of sports gambling on citizens, athletes, and schools.

DURBIN: It is critical that Congress look into sports betting’s impact on America and determine how the industry should be regulated going forward.

Former gaming enforcement director David Rebuck encouraged lawmakers to leave the issue to the states.

REBUCK: I believe after six and a half years of litigation to the states to earn rights constitutional rights to have sports wagering, that we are entitled to do the best we can to regulate and deal with the issues that are highlighted here…

But public health expert Harry Levant says current regulations fail to address the problems created by gambling corporations partnering with state governments, sports leagues, and media companies.

LEVANT: …all are acting in concert to deliver online gambling at light speed and ensure the action never stops. The new AI fueled business model will inexorably result in increased gambling addiction and gambling related harm.

Back in September, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced a bill to set national minimum standards for the gaming industry. He told WORLD about some of the problems it would address.

BLUMENTHAL: So-called risk-free bets, the throttling techniques, the targeting and customizing of betting to individuals, the sophistication and complexity of these techniques is staggering and it's successful because the amount of gambling is exploding.

Several witnesses and lawmakers said they support putting minimum standards in place. But Bernal of Stop Predatory Gambling says the legislation will not fix a key underlying problem.

BERNAL: All these forms of commercialized gambling that you see in the public square, every single one of them is an extension of a government program. This, this business is only legal when you partner with state government.

States like New York and North Carolina tax the winnings of sports gambling and use that revenue to fund programs like education and youth sports, as well as gambling recovery programs. But gambling is not your typical business service or product.

BERNAL: You can't regulate this business in a way that's safe for the American public, because it's a con. It's a form of consumer financial fraud.

Gary Schneider’s gambling addiction ended only after months of counseling through Gamblers Anonymous. As a counselor now, he is alarmed by the data that reveals a high number of high school and college-aged young people who have tried gambling. In 2023, the NCAA reported that more than half of college students bet on sports online and were convinced they could make money by playing the game.

SCHNEIDER: We're talking tens of millions of kids that have that have gambled so far.

Les Bernal says that it will be difficult to deter young people from accepting sportsbooks’ call to “get in the game” when so much of pop culture is on board.

BERNAL: They don’t know enough to stop, and why would they stop when they see their favorite athletes are endorsing this on TV, LeBron James endorsing online gambling, and, you know, Peyton Manning and all these other famous athletes, like, why would they think it's a dangerous product that could hurt them the rest of their lives?

Schneider is hopeful that changing the rules for how sportsbooks present themselves to the public could help Americans see the danger…and put gambling corporations on notice that they are going to have to change.

SCHNEIDER: Remove that advertising, it's going to be hard for them to survive.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: freezing human embryos.

No one knows exactly how many human embryos are currently frozen in the U.S. Estimates range from a few hundred thousand to more than a million.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Alabama’s Supreme Court made a ruling last year that brought these tiny frozen humans into the national spotlight. It classified them as children under a civil wrongful death law, sparking discussions about IVF both among lawmakers and the general public.

REICHARD: In recent episodes of our Doubletake series, WORLD’s Leah Savas explained the process of IVF from the perspective of a mom who used it. Today, we’ll hear from a former embryologist who explains what embryos go through.

LEAH SAVAS: Craig Turczynski has a PhD in reproductive physiology and used to work as an embryologist in an IVF lab. He left embryology more than 20 years ago over ethical concerns.

CRAIG TURCZYNSKI: The final straw was actually when I was … essentially forced to discard a patient's … embryos. Patient wanted them discarded. The patient's physician, who was my boss insisted that I follow the patient's wishes.

It’s standard in the field to discard embryos if they are deemed low quality or if they’re simply unwanted. Many Christians see IVF as acceptable to pursue as long as they avoid discarding their embryos and commit to using all of them, even if it means some of the embryos have to remain frozen for a time.

But, as Turczynski explains, even the standard process of freezing embryos has its own ethical complexities.

TURCZYNSKI: The fact that they're even created and then frozen … doing that is never for the benefit of the embryo itself. It's only to improve the opportunity that at least one of them will become a baby for the parents. So it's a benefit to the parents, it's a benefit to the program, because they do want success, but it's at the expense of these human lives.

Usually in the IVF process, providers inseminate more eggs than they intend to immediately transfer into a woman’s uterus. This is to increase the chances of having multiple viable embryos to work with.

TURCZYNSKI: After they select the embryos that they would transfer, then the remaining embryos that they call excess, … they have to first put them in a medium. A liquid medium that they call a cryo protectant.

That essentially dehydrates the embryo, replacing the water inside its cells with the cryoprotectant substance. It helps prevent the formation of ice crystals in the cells.

TURCZYNSKI: The enemy of any cell that's being frozen is the formation of ice crystals, which would be like internal knives that go in and basically lyse cells and kill them.

The amount of water the lab removes from the cells depends on the freezing method used. The most common method today, called vitrification, is a fast-freezing technique that involves using more cryoprotectants and then plunging the embryos into liquid nitrogen so that their temperature drops hundreds of degrees fahrenheit in seconds. That puts the embryo into a glass-like state, effectively eliminating ice crystal formation, if done correctly.

TURCZYNSKI: So even though they're subjected to this cryo protectant, it doesn't 100% protect them, right? Some survive. Some don't. Usually the more viable ones will survive.

While the fast-freezing technique is safer for the embryos than an older slow freezing technique, the substances used as cryoprotectants in both methods can be toxic to cells.

TURCZYNSKI: The cryo protectant itself is not in any way therapeutic to the embryo. ... It's the better of two evils, right? If you don't use any cryo protectant, it's definitely going to die, but it's not … a benefit to the embryo at all, but it helps it survive this process.

Now in a glass-like state, these embryos have a new home, inside of metal tanks filled with liquid nitrogen. Metal canisters hang in the tanks, suspended from hooks. Each canister contains smaller metal devices called canes, which hold even smaller plastic devices, straws or vials, that contain the microscopic embryos.

When a patient is ready for one or more of the frozen embryos, the lab removes the embryos they want to use. They have to warm them up from the sub-zero temperatures and replace the cryoprotectant with water… all at the right speed to avoid damaging the embryos.

TURCZYNSKI: You don't want so much water to rush into the embryo that it explodes it and that is one of the harm that's one of the things that can happen to that embryo, is it can basically explode. So you look under the microscope, all you see is fragments of an embryo, or you may not see anything at all.

While most embryos survive vitrification, up to 5% don’t. But even when all of that goes right, there’s still a lot more that can go wrong with embryos that parents entrust to fertility centers.

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: The case involves couples whose embryos were destroyed when a patient removed them from a freezer and accidentally dropped them.

KAI REED: The storage tanks containing liquid nitrogen to keep the material at a certain temperature failed. In Cleveland that means over 2,000 eggs and embryos were compromised. A similar problem occurred at a facility in San Francisco the same weekend.

GAYLE KING: A married couple is suing a fertility clinic and its owner over an IVF mixup that led two women to give birth to the other person’s baby.

Stories like these are rare. But they don’t surprise Turczynski. And they just reinforce the reasons why he no longer supports the process.

Nationally, Turczynski’s views are certainly in the minority. A Pew Research Center poll in April 2024 found that about 70% of Americans see IVF access as a good thing. Even among people who believe life begins at conception, around 60% see IVF positively, according to the same survey. For them, the focus is on the children who would not have otherwise been born—not the plight of the embryos on ice.

And for Turczynski, that’s the whole point. The focus of IVF is on the final product instead of how the process affects people—including frozen embryos.

TURCZYNSKI: This is my personal belief, right? It's part of the reason why I left, is that it's only because you're doing these things that you set up scenarios that really can't be solved, right? And you set up scenarios that are absurd … and you couldn't make them up.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leah Savas.

NICK EICHER, HOST: If you had little kids around for Christmas morning, you know the excitement—the anticipation!—as they can’t wait to tear into those wrapped boxes.

Now imagine saying, “Hey kids, you’re going to love this, but you’ll need to wait about half a century. Give or take.”

That’s exactly what happened to Tim King, who’s all grown up now and in his 50s. While remodeling his parents’ bathroom recently, he thought, “I’d better check inside the wall before sealing it up.” Good thing!

KING: And look what I find? That’s my Christmas present! (sound of wrapping paper crinkling)

The excitement just doesn’t stick around, does it?

The gift was from when King was six. The wrapping paper’s yellow at this point, but inside was a brand new set of Matchbox Thunder Jets!

King’s mom doesn’t remember all the details but admits she used to hide presents in the attic. Best guess? It fell behind the wall and stayed hidden for 46 years.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, January 7th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: A state funeral.

From the day former President Jimmy Carter died just before the calendar turned to 2025, a clock began ticking for the military units responsible for the ceremonies.

The clock seemed to move even faster, as the six-day state funeral started this past weekend in Georgia.

EICHER: The funeral procession Saturday wound through Carter’s hometown, Plains.

A farm bell rang out 39 times to honor the 39th president.

REICHARD: He lay in repose at the Carter Center in Atlanta up until this morning.

From Dobbins Air Reserve Base, Special Air Mission 39 will take off for Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, arriving at quarter to 1 eastern time.

EICHER: Today, you’ll meet some of those who provide what they call the musical soundtrack for the state funeral, the U.S. Air Force band. Here’s WORLD Senior Producer Kristen Flavin.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: I worked on this story with one of our freelance correspondents, Jeff Palomino. He’s an Air Force veteran, a retired Colonel, and had the contacts to make it happen. Jeff, good morning.

JEFF PALOMINO: Hey, Kristen.

FLAVIN: We’re going to hear from Air Force band members who as we speak are awaiting the flight carrying Carter’s remains.

But by way of setup, Jeff, describe how the Air Force band prepares for a state funeral … what would they be doing right now?

PALOMINO: Yeah, a state funeral involves bands from all the military branches as well as multiple honor and color guard units. The band will have fifty-six musicians today, a seven by eight block, and it’s a very specific instrumentation. No strings, no vocalists. The band itself is actually much larger than just this group. They’ve got over a hundred eighty members in the band - and they have other missions that don’t stop just because there is a state funeral. So, for example, the Air Force plays about eight hundred times at Arlington National Cemetery every year. A deceased airman - probably more than one - will be buried at Arlington today and music is needed to honor that ceremony. So, the manning of the Air Force band is actually based on the ability to do these multiple missions at one time.

FLAVIN: President Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946. After Annapolis, he served seven years in the Navy.

Jeff, from your perspective, what is it about Carter’s military service that raises the meaning of his state funeral?

PALOMINO: As you said, this is a state funeral but its also a military funeral. I’ve been to several military funerals, and I’m always moved because I find myself reflecting on the fact that this person - at some point in their life - gave themselves for others, for their country. Military funerals also make me feel like I’ve lost someone in your family. I think that’s common even if the person served in a different branch or in another generation. I thought it was interesting that following his death, the Navy’s top officer, the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti issued a statement on his passing where she referred to the former president as a “shipmate.” That’s Navy speak for fellow sailor, someone serving on the same ship as you, in other words your friend and brother. So, I expect the events of the next few days to be even more moving for those reasons.

FLAVIN: Jeff, thanks.

PALOMINO: My honor to interview these remarkable people.

FLAVIN: One thing Jeff emphasized was how precise these state funerals are. How quickly the military members have to pull them together after a president dies.

VALADIE: Once you have notification of demise, there's very little time to solidify personnel.

That’s Chief Master Sergeant Daniel Valadie. He’s the drum major for the Air Force Band. Valadie’s been in the ceremonial brass for 25 years.

VALADIE: It's one of the cornerstone missions for the entire organization.

With the announcement of the former president’s death, the band began preparations.

VALADIE: There's a lot of coordination that happens in a very short amount of time.

This is a military operation from beginning to end. These are active duty servicemen and women and this funeral is their mission.

VALADIE: There'll be an inspection that happens here to make sure everyone's uniforms are, you know, exactly what they need to be. We'll go over to Andrews, there'll be security that needs to be cleared through and do a last minute walk through rehearsals with all of the team elements.

It’s an honor to honor a former commander-in-chief and to recognize the importance of the person.

VALADIE: within that we’re the musical soundtrack. And if you can imagine a movie without a musical soundtrack, it really loses a lot of its emotional underpinnings.

To provide that crucial soundtrack requires military precision.

EMERY: We rehearse for several days prior to the arrival.

Senior Master Sergeant Brooke Emery is a clarinetist. She’s been in service for more than 20 years. She says rehearsal days can be tedious.

EMERY: You spend a lot of time on the flight line at Andrews Air Force Base, rehearsing the sequence over and over again to make sure it looks absolutely perfect for when that former commander in chief arrives and for that moment that millions of people will be watching on television…

And today, the day of Special Air Mission 39, will begin with a lot of waiting…

EMERY: Everyone will sort of be tucked away in a bus or in a hangar.

After a short 550-mile flight, they’ll get word the plane is on approach.

EMERY: And everything is set into motion.

A joint honor guard representing all the services brings out a carpet, the service-members march to meet the plane…

EMERY: So everything that you've rehearsed over the past three days happens within like 10 minutes

A 100-year-life, a four-year term of office, 10 minutes. The Air Force Band tells a carefully orchestrated story, but instead of words, musical notes.

VALADIE: We're trying to make sure that as much as the event is important for the entire world and nation, that we don't lose sight of the fact that it really has to be important and something that is essential for the family to be able to honor their their loved one

Both Valadie and Emery have done a state funeral before, so some of this is familiar. The last one was for former president George H. W. Bush in 2018.

EMERY: Depending on what station you're watching on something like a C-Span, what you'll end up catching is the band sitting stationary, as the casket is brought out …

AUDIO: [Commands]

EMERY: …the band will play the selection.

AUDIO [Music begins, run under narration + sot]

For the Bush funeral, the selection was the traditional Hail to the Chief followed by My Country Tis of Thee.

VALADIE: So the music is a conversation that happens between the Military District of Washington and the families, and they pick the hymns that they want as material underneath. And we're basically providing the underscore for the movement of remains. We're playing musical honors.

For the arrival today, the band will play two additional pieces, chosen by the Carter family—Two hymns: Abide With Me and Oh Master Let Me Walk With Thee.

And once the band finishes, the casket is transferred to a hearse and the family leaves with the procession, continuing on to the next stages of the funeral.

The Air Force band will play again Thursday when the late president and his family depart Andrews.

The events are rehearsed and timed out perfectly, steeped in tradition and rich with American symbolism, but for Emery, she looks deeper.

EMERY: I'm thinking back to President H. W. Bush's funeral where President George W. Bush was there for the arrival and the departure. And you can see their face. And at that moment, they aren't the former president. They are someone's son. They are someone's family member. And it's a very humanizing moment. And I'm moved by it every time.

With my colleague Jeff Palomino and reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

MUSIC: [ABIDE WITH ME]

REICHARD: This piece is one of the two the Carter family chose for today’s arrival ceremony at Andrews. It’s titled “Abide With Me.” At the beginning of this segment, you heard the other, “O Master Let Me Walk With Thee.” Carter will lie in state at the Capitol beginning today at 3 eastern, then all day tomorrow. The national funeral service is Thursday morning at 10 eastern. Burial is back in Plains, Georgia.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, January 7th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Up next, WORLD Commentator Janie B. Cheaney on what “living in the moment” really means.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: At a chilly Sunday-evening worship, years ago, our pastor preached on a theme borrowed from his own grandfather’s sermon notes dated 1949—before most of us were even born.

The future, he said, is like a dense veil, so thick we can’t even see what the next minute holds. I played with that figure of speech. Maybe the future was more like a fog, where we can form a reasonable picture of the next days and weeks, but the more distant times are shrouded in mystery. Ghostly shapes rear up out there, the shapes of our children, grandchildren, friends, and foes, yet unmet.

Or not. For in every sliver of the future lurks the sudden shift. One minute can change everything.

It could have changed for me on my way to church that very evening. I was traveling north on my usual route. The church building was in view, two blocks ahead. At a moderate speed—though perhaps a tad faster than I should have been driving—I cruised through the last intersection and, glancing up, noticed that the light was red.

In one endless second: a screaming glare of headlights to the left, just before the force of a 300 horsepower engine burrows into my side. Or an outraged blare of horn as a pickup truck strikes my rear bumper and spins me like a top. Or the sputter and whine of a police siren as a cop swivels his blue light and pulls me over. Me feeling—or perhaps looking—like a crumpled wad of paper in my new coat that was such a great deal and made me so happy for a while.

[PAUSE] No, none of that happened. My hands flew up from the wheel, as though horrified, and my wandering mind snapped back to attention with all kinds of oh-nos and what-ifs and promises never to do that again.

It was a good experience from that perspective, a smart crack of the whip to a mind too prone to wander. I could have slammed into my future at 40 mph, loading it with consequences for my immediate family. The tremors would have shaken out to friends, church members, and business associates, all rallying to assist me or do without me.

A single moment can change everything.

Moses wrote, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” I try to do that with every sunrise God gives me, knowing their number is limited. My times are in His hands. I need not fear the veil that hides my future; even a careless instant with dreadful results He can work out for good.

But be careful not to shove “He can” in front of “I will.”

My continuing resolution: Pay attention. Not to constantly grill myself on how I’m using the time, but to remain aware of time’s potential for good or evil. It’s moment by moment that things happen, that the Spirit moves, that lives begin and end. God orders my days, but I’m accountable for my minutes.

I’m Janie B Cheaney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: snowstorms, lying in state, and certifying the vote. Just another January in the nation’s capital.

And, how a short-lived flower bloom brings people together in unexpected ways.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Washington producer Harrison Watters reported and wrote today’s story on sports gambling.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.” —Psalm 7:7

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.