Beyond Common Sense

I can’t help wondering what my mom is thinking tonight – after fifty-five years in one house, this is her last night there.  This is the place where she brought up her two little girls, the place where Dad farmed, where life was lived. It’s over; another chapter has closed in her book of life.

I wonder if she feels like life is over?  I know Tom and I felt a bit that way when Nathan left for college this year.  The chicks have flown, the nest is now empty.  Is life over?  Only if you want it to be!

Next door to my mother’s beautiful new home, another James will grow – our grandson.   Perhaps someday, like my father, he will have cows just like his Pappy!  Maybe he will love the fields and woods too.  He is a new generation, having the rare privilege of growing up in the same room as his grandmother did!  My room is now his room!  What an awesome thought and blessing!

Growing old gracefully – it’s harder than you think!  It seems like we spend so many years changing diapers, feeding hungry teens, training our children to have character – preparing them to receive the passed baton; and then suddenly, they’ve snatched it from our grasp and are running, running, running!  (And we can’t keep up! 🙂 )  We sigh a little, remembering all those wonderful years – wondering where they went; and we can feel as though life is over.

It is a new chapter, and that can be a bit scary; but if we dwell too much on the past, we miss all the wonderful blessing that God has for us today!  And isn’t that just like Old Scratch!  In much the same way, he tempts young people to dwell on the future, missing today’s blessings !

One of my favorite sayings (I believe of Ken Hay’s of at the WILDS) is: “Keep your mind where your body is!”  Grant it, there are times when we enjoy looking forward to a special occasion: but if we spend too much time in the past or future, our lives become nothing more the skips and jumps with a whole lot of emptiness in between!  Cherish the past; prepare for the future, but most of all, relish today – you will never be able to live it again!

So here’s to tomorrow: moving day!  May this new chapter add many wonderful memories to an already full life!

“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Micah 6:8

 “But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?”             Luke 12:20

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