When Sara and I were first
married and had little kids, old guys would come up to me and say,
“Enjoy this
time! It goes by so fast!”
A
couple of weekends ago, my oldest daughter got married and my
youngest was the
maid of honour and now I am the old guy who is saying, “They grow
up so fast!”
How
did
this happen? It seems like
only a couple
of years ago that Sara and I were the ones standing at the front
of the church
building exchanging vows and dreaming about our future
(Incidentally, I am
writing this on our 24th wedding anniversary, so it
really was a
while ago). I had a sporty
car and I
remember feeling badly for the old guys riding around in minivans. Now, not only is my sporty
car long gone, but
I have been through the minivan stage and have progressed to the
dreaded
SUV!
Not
that my children growing up is a bad thing.
Sara and I have thoroughly enjoyed every stage along the
way. From play parks, to
the first day of school,
to high school graduations and family trips, we have had a lot of
fun! I expect that the
next stages will be fun as
well.
The
point, that I am just now starting to understand in a real way, is
that the
next stages just keep coming! As
much
as I might have liked to stop time and keep my two little
pigtailed girls forever,
that is not an option. Time
keeps
ticking and no matter how long you live, it is going to seem like
it went by very
quickly. As scripture
poetically notes, “You
are just a vapour that appears for a little while and then
vanishes away”
(James 4:14).
This
is
not meant to be a sad message. It
is simply
a reminder that there is no time to waste.
Therefore, maybe it would be a good idea to pay attention
to the joy
that is around us each day and get ready for the eternal home that
is coming.
As 1 Peter 1:24-25
says, “All
people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of
the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord
endures
forever”.
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