Re-connection

It all started with a picture.

Recently, my week began in a most unusual way. I had a FB message from a classmate from elementary school days back when there were country schoolhouses in Missouri.

She asked me to settle a dispute with a friend (who was also a school mate from those country school days) as to where I was located in a picture of a long-ago Vacation Bible School gathering at the country church my family attended.

My dad farmed in Marion County Missouri (near Hannibal) from the time I was four until nine years old. Then my folks bought a farm 40 miles away. Forty miles is nothing now but in those days, it was almost a world away and I eventually lost contact with nearly all my classmates and church friends.  

circa 1952

Thanks to my friend, Jeanie (the elementary school classmate), I have re-connected with one of my best friends from those years, Joy, who posted the VBS picture I mentioned above. During that week my friend “friended” me on FB and now her younger sister has done so, also. It was an absolute thrill to talk with my friend on the phone after having lost touch with her for probably 50 years.

Such an experience gives me a glimpse into how long-separated siblings or family members must feel when they are re-united. A friend recently told me a poignant story of the daughter she had given away at birth as a single college student. Just recently, this daughter whom she’d only glimpsed at birth, worked through adoption records and this birth mother was united with her child. What a joyous time!

That makes me also think of the story Jesus told about a father who yearned to see his younger son who had taken his inheritance so he could go and do “his own thing.” An important part of the story is a picture of this loving father so overjoyed to see his wandering son return, he called for a feast in the son’s honor as well as luxurious new clothes (as he came home in rags).

That’s an understandable illustration of how God feels when one of His wandering children come back “home” to Him. Like many of our emotions, I think He gives us great joy in re-connecting with friends, family members, or even Him. 

Many thanks--Jeanie and Joy.

The Many Faces of Time

Someone recently asked me if I collected clocks. The reason for her question came from seeing six clocks scattered around my living room. My answer was “No, it just looks like it.” Actually, only one of these time-measurers lets me know what time it is. The rest sit around looking decorative, but are silent as the grave. 

As I wrote this post title, the images of the “baby” new year and old “Father Time”  representing the just-finished year both came to mind. We’re already at the half-way make of January—hard to believe, huh? I look at the month already past and I’m not particularly happy with the way I’ve used the time those days represent.

There is a song about time being a healer. And of course, the wise old "Preacher" who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament listed all sorts of “times.”  In chapter 3, verses 2-8, he lists fourteen sets of opposing actions, e.g. “a time to be born and a time to die,” and he prefaces it in verse 1 by saying, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.”

Since this book was purportedly written by King Solomon, the wisest man ever to live, how can I argue with his statement that there is a time for everything. That means I should not be whining about not having enough time to do this or that. After all, God gives each of us 24 hours in a day in which to choose how to spend them.

I was reminded by something I read earlier this week that “each day is an unrepeatable gift.” I have the freedom to choose how I spend the gift of that day’s time, but I can't "do" it over. Obviously, none of us know when our time on earth will end and as I am now set squarely in the middle of the senior citizen age bracket, mortality becomes more and more a thing to contemplate.

Consequently, Scripture verses having to do with “redeeming the time” and “teach us to number our days” are more meaningful to me now than they probably were 20 years ago. At the end of the day, I want to agree with the “Preacher” who states at the close of his book, after trying out all the experiences his world had to offer, “…here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Eccles. 12:13)

A New Year or Just Another Day

Due to human nature’s fondness (at least in this country) for the idea of new beginnings on January 1 of each year, we resolve to lose weight, exercise regularly, take time to smell the roses, etc., etc. There certainly is nothing wrong with new beginnings. In fact, I think we look forward to fresh starts harking back to the time when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and in His mercy He began unfolding the plan of allowing Man a new beginning. God loved mankind so much He made possible the ultimate start-over for us with Jesus' death on the cross in payment for our sins and His resurrection victory over death.

Which brings me to this “new year.” Just writing 2016 seems very strange to see at this point. But here we are, like it or not. This year or this day can be a portion of a journey, or an adventure, or a page of an adventure book, or a period of drudgery. Most of us are in a position to choose how we experience it.

Personally, I like the idea of each day being a page of an adventure book as that could also include the idea of life being a journey. Last year at this time I wrote about adventure which is not a word or activity cluster I would generally associate with myself. If different life experiences, as in out of the norm, count as adventure, I got to participate:)

As I think of our earthly measurement of time, it seems to me that each new day we’re given on this earth is somewhat like a signal for a “new” year daily because it’s a fresh start on the rest of our life however long that might be. I wrote the poem below several years ago and used it in a blog post in earlier years, but felt like it would be a good way to end this post.

                       Illumination

                        Make mine a transparent life
                        Through which Your loving spirit shines.

                        Refine the impurities

                        So sin’s scar tissue

                        Will not obscure Your light;

                        All selfish desires

                        (even those appearing “good”)

                         Burned away,

                        Allowing only You to be visible.

That is my personal desire for 2016. Perhaps it will be yours, too.