Life IS short.

Life is too short. One day may seem to linger on and not move quickly enough, then all of a sudden you look back and so much time has passed! When exactly does that moment occur? When is that exact second that time moves from slow to fast? Is it while we are making lunches for our kids? Is it while we sit and watch t.v.? Is it when someone we know dies and makes us realize that life moves too quickly? It's one of those nights when our baby's wont sleep and we rock them in our arms for what seems like an eternity, and we are tired and worn out, and we just want to be able to lay that baby in his/her crib and get some sleep. Then all of a sudden all you want to do is be able to hold that baby again, but time has slipped away and they are too big to hold and rock in your arms, or for some parents...those babies are gone from our lives forever and now reside with Jesus in Heaven.
What do we do with our lives in the mean time? Do we work to much? Do we play too much? How do we find a balance that will make time move exactly how we want it to? My friends, we cant. We have no control over time.
Friends of mine are loosing people they love. I dont know these people that are on their last legs of life. I've never met them, but I do know the ones that love them. It makes you think. A woman of a small child, dying of cancer. A young man who's life is turned upside down by a car accident. A parent that will not live to see their child graduate high school, or get married, or have children of their own.
While all this seems so unfair, it is the way of life. It is the time. Weather we are dying of cancer, or simply living our normal life, we are all headed towards the same ending. Just in case you haven't heard, we all die. One day, our light goes out.
I was thinking today about when I was a child. I lived out in the country and my Dad was a pastor of a country church. We lived in a parsonage and right out our backyard was a cemetery. I know...you find that strange. Everyone does. But it's not strange to me. I have always been aware of death. I litterly had dead people buried in my back yard. I remember getting excited near Veteran's Day when people would come out and put American flags on the graves of Vets. I loved seeing them wave in the wind and thinking about the person they were. My imagination would lead me to their life, or what I may have thought their life was like. In my back yard I had a swing set. I had one of those little plastic sided baby pools one year. I had a dog. I had rabbits. I had tombstones. Those stones were just as fun to me as anyone could imagine. I had a pretend horse, I had the general store from "little house on the prairie", I had pulpits and stepping stones and even landmines at times. I even had my very own tombstone. Yes, sometime in the 1800's a woman named Sarah Overturf was buried in my cemetery. I thought that was so cool. My imagination was sparked by a world that not many other kids got to be a part of.
What if, we all looked at a final resting place as I did when I was a child. What if instead of being "creeped out" by cemeteries, we were inspired by the life that those who are buried there lived?
When I die, of course I would like to be buried in my cemetery out in the country. I dont think they bury people there anymore, but maybe they would make an exception for the girl who lived there. I dont plan on dying anytime soon, but none of us do. Time just slips by so fast. Ok, so how am I tying this together, you ask? It simply comes down to this. The fun really begins when our lives here end. If you believe in Jesus, Then as you dance in Heaven, maybe some little girl will dance on your grave, and life, as fast as it went by, will be enjoyed by all.
So take this day and look to God to how He would have you use it.
"A person's steps are directed by the Lord. How then can anyone understand their own way?" Proverbs 20:24