Socrates wrote “Like sands through an hour glass so are the days of our lives.”
The artist Ann Welsh Gardner wrote “when life becomes too easy we become fat and lazy but when we hurt we choose our medium.”
That medium can be almost anything including painting, writing or sewing but I believe that in some way our medium has to extend outside ourselves.
There was once a young woman who was undergoing a deep depression and happened to find her grandmother’s journal.
Within that diary she wrote down her secret to overcoming depression.
It went something like this: Cook something good, make something pretty, write something everyday, exercise and do something for someone else everyday.
I found that list to be a magic mix, a secret to overcoming depression, though I would never minimize the need for medical care.
Having recently met a precious couple at a local meeting. I was overcome with sadness when the mother told me how they had suddenly just lost their adult daughter, thus causing them to want to reach out to those less fortunate in the community, sensing that volunteering would help fill the void in their lives.
I felt motivated to reach out to try to extend my support because we all need someone to care.
I believe there are no accidents — that God places people in our path — to make a difference in at least some small way because we all need to know someone to understand.
I call these as God Wink experiences when we know that someone has been placed in our path for a reason, though we may not always understand the rhyme or reason or why.
We can’t fake caring.
This leads me to tell you about a widower who was looking through his family trunk recently and how he just now discovered a poem penned in his wife’s own hand. It was dated just days before she died, after a long illness, over thirty years ago. The piece was titled Just One More Day.
It went something like this: “Give me just one more day with you!”
Those poignant words were overwhelming to him and are enough to get our attention because life is so uncertain. Our rugs can be jerked out from under our feet so quickly, with no warning.
Even when we see it coming we aren’t prepared for the aftershock of losing the dearest to us on earth!
Yet in the losing of a loved one we should learn something from the heart rending experience, of feeling ourselves choking with tears, as we go under for the third time hardly able to breathe, trying to stay afloat as it often takes many years for us to come to grips with the reality of losing the ones who make our lives whole, who get us up in the morning, who keep us going with their Godlike love found in human relationships which is the closest thing to heaven upon this earth.
Taking our loved ones for-granted is an age old human failing because we don’t fully appreciate what we have until we lose that one whether by death or divorce.
Back in the 60’s there was a popular stage play titled Our Town which was written by Thornton Wilder. The story revolves around a young girl who dies and goes to heaven. She misses her family so much and begs God to grant her one wish to which she asked to return to the earth for just one more day.
She chose one of her birthdays. In total disbelief she was in shock as she turned around and kept noticing how her family didn’t even pay attention to what she was saying or doing on her special day.
She asked God to take her back realizing that her life was not what she thought upon this earth.
Why are we so quick to snap, to not learn, to be wrapped up in our own pursuits, our hobbies, our passions, our interests and totally take for granted those who mean the most to us until after they are passed and gone?
The poet went on to say that if she had one more day she would turn off the television set, unplug the phone and hug repeatedly and say a million times “I love you.”
Why are we so slow to learn? Why do we have to keep on learning our lessons over and over again with little retention?
Your clue is as good as mine but I know that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and He always gets me to the right place at the right time.
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