Numbering Our Days
Everything that has a beginning has an end. Good things and not-so-good things. Short days and long days. Summer vacation. A long afternoon at school with your least favorite teacher. Years of braces. A tall glass of lemonade on a hot July day. The long car ride across the country to visit Grandma. Four (or more) years of college. The mountain of laundry that grew overnight. Anxious hours awaiting a newborn's entry into the world. A cozy Saturday morning coffee date with a best friend. Even a game of Monopoly.
Most endings are neither traumatic nor eagerly anticipated; they just happen. No special ceremonies are needed to celebrate the end of a lunch break at work. Finishing the grocery shopping does not normally give way to tears (unless the trip involved small children and a mother deprived of nap time). The weekly soccer game comes and goes, and life moves on.
But we have found ourselves in a different sort of situation: A set amount of time to learn and live in France, and the end of that time is rapidly approaching. Everything we are doing here will have a "last": walking to church, getting bread from the bakery, chatting with neighbors, picking kids up from school, going to the market, squeezing onto the bus with arms full of groceries, visiting with friends. And everyone we see, we will see for a "last" time, with no idea if or when our paths may ever cross again.
It's a bit mind-boggling, all this business of ending things and saying good-bye. Did we say all we could have said? Did we do the right things? Are there people we have ignored? Were we a blessing to those around us? Have we hurt people unintentionally? Did we get involved enough in the lives of others? I think about the ending of all these things, and it's easy to become discouraged, to become overwhelmed with the burden of finishing all of these tasks, activities and relationships at the right time and in the right way.
Sometimes the end of things seems distant and unimportant, and then the burden to live each day to the full is barely noticeable. But here, carrying the weight of all the endings soon to come, we are learning the importance of each day, of each opportunity. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
With all these endings come beginnings also. It can be easy to worry about what's next. But as someone very dear to me said just recently, "I don't know the future. But I know who HOLDS the future." The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. And that promise has no ending.
Most endings are neither traumatic nor eagerly anticipated; they just happen. No special ceremonies are needed to celebrate the end of a lunch break at work. Finishing the grocery shopping does not normally give way to tears (unless the trip involved small children and a mother deprived of nap time). The weekly soccer game comes and goes, and life moves on.
But we have found ourselves in a different sort of situation: A set amount of time to learn and live in France, and the end of that time is rapidly approaching. Everything we are doing here will have a "last": walking to church, getting bread from the bakery, chatting with neighbors, picking kids up from school, going to the market, squeezing onto the bus with arms full of groceries, visiting with friends. And everyone we see, we will see for a "last" time, with no idea if or when our paths may ever cross again.
It's a bit mind-boggling, all this business of ending things and saying good-bye. Did we say all we could have said? Did we do the right things? Are there people we have ignored? Were we a blessing to those around us? Have we hurt people unintentionally? Did we get involved enough in the lives of others? I think about the ending of all these things, and it's easy to become discouraged, to become overwhelmed with the burden of finishing all of these tasks, activities and relationships at the right time and in the right way.
Sometimes the end of things seems distant and unimportant, and then the burden to live each day to the full is barely noticeable. But here, carrying the weight of all the endings soon to come, we are learning the importance of each day, of each opportunity. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Comments