The Impact of Today
Life flies by, doesn’t it?
Have you ever stopped for a moment and achingly wondered, “Where has it all gone?”
“Why … I was just a teen-ager yesterday!”
“When did my children grow up?! Where did the fingerprints on the windows … and the mountain of unfolded laundry … and the car seats disappear to?”
“I was only married last month … wasn’t I?! How can my groom have gray hair and I, his bride, have wrinkles?”
“I am certainly not old enough to be a grandmother! I was just playing with dolls last week!”
Time. It roars by, breaking all barriers of sound and light, with apologies to no one.
Time is an avalanche that seems to gather speed as the years fly by in a blur of memories, heartache, happiness and challenges.
How can we grasp and hold onto this precious commodity called “time”? Why does life slip through our fingers like water through a sieve?
I remember my grandparents and parents talking about “the good old days” with a longing in their voices and a far-away look in their eyes.
I understand now.
I understand that the time and place known as “yesterday” can only be reached by traveling down the back and well-worn roadways of my heart.
The good old days …
When my kids were little …
When I was young …
When my dad was still here …
When more of life was in front of me rather than behind me …
All of my beautiful “when’s” have aged into a lovely basket of exquisite memories that are appropriately identified as “then”.
So much of my life is now in the past tense and will never, ever happen again. How valuable are all of the yesterdays stored as cherished treasure in this woman’s heart!
Slow down, time! Stop accelerating faster and faster and faster!
Life … stop speeding out of control!
After six decades of living, I suppose that I have learned a thing or two about the passage of time and about the brevity of life and about the intrinsic value of both.
One of the ingredients that indeed will reckon a life as glorious is that life on earth was never meant to last forever. A minute was never meant to be an hour … an hour was never meant to be a day … and a day was never meant to be a week.
A week was never meant to be a month … a month was never meant to be a year … and a year was never meant to equal a lifetime.
The glory of life is found in its sure and certain passing. Life is always moving at a rapid and purposeful speed, isn’t it?
Nothing ever remains the same.
Nothing ever remains the same and that is what makes each moment a grand gift and causes each ordinary day to become a treasure of eternal value.
Life should never be measured by the perpetual ticking of minutes on a clock or by the constant passing of months on a calendar.
Life is more than the candles on my birthday cake … the obvious wrinkles on my face … and by the gray hairs that are multiplying on a daily basis.
Life should always be calibrated by the prayers I have prayed … by the children I have embraced … by the songs I have sung … and by the people I have helped.
Life is the fulfilling culmination of books that I have read … by the places that I have traveled … by the leisurely walks that I have taken … and by the hands that I have held.
One of the dearest lessons of wringing the absolute joy and wonder out of life is the ability to maintain a thankful heart through every season.
A lifestyle of thanksgiving has the miraculous power of turning trials into triumphs and morphing pain into purpose.
Learn to appreciate what you have today before time and regret cause you to appreciate what you had yesterday.
What you choose to do today is able to vastly improve the value and impact of all of your tomorrows.
Each day is too short for me to pray all the prayers that I long to pray … to love all of the people that I care about … to reach out to all of the ones who need a helping hand … to read the books that I want to read … and to sing the songs that were meant to be sung.
However, each new day is a rare and priceless opportunity to try it all again. And so at the onset of a fresh dawn I determine to pray … to love … to reach out … to read … and to sing.
And it is in that singular determination that I am able to build a life of breathtaking length and magnificent impact.
You know all those things you have always planned to do … all of those great things that you have dreamed about accomplishing with your life? You should go and do them … today if possible.
Tomorrow has not been promised to us … and today is the greatest gift that has ever been given.
Your life will lengthen and stretch when you determine to enjoy the generous and gracious present that has been given this day.
The bounty of life is not found in the length thereof but it is always enthusiastically discovered in the moment.
And, after all, we were not really made for “time”, were we? We are creatures of eternity and so this life is not all that defines us, fulfills us or renews us.
This time … this day … will evaporate like the dew on the morning grass. But the value of the vapor that defines the life we have been given is found in the priceless and unending stuff of which eternity is made.
“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11
