Life's Like an Hour Glass Glued to the Table

It seems odd to me that I have lived most of my life. I still think of myself as the mother of three young children. But one is buried, one is married, and one is getting ready to graduate from college. The younger two are hitting their mid-twenties even as I stare at my approaching mid-fifities and Jordan would be almost 30!

It's an old lament. As old as post flood mankind, I suppose. "How did I get here so quickly? Where have the years gone?" Yet when it is my mouth forming the words, they take on a new and surreal meaning.

It was my grandparents who were old. Not me. And then my parents. But not me. And now it is me! Okay, not yet old, but not young either.

Gone is the foolishness of the teenage years. Gone is the thrill and adventure of all the open ended possibilities of my twenties. Gone is the delight of childbearing and the challenges of child-rearing. Gone is the houseful of children with all their busyness, commotion and endless activities.

Some days I thought it would never end and now I can't believe it ended so quickly.

This momentary melancholy will pass, because I am one of the fortunate ones. I was able to stay home and raise those children. By His great and unsearchable grace, they all love and serve the Lord.

While there is much to look back on, there is much to look forward to as well! The delight of grand children. Finishing and promoting "The Rhyme and Reason Series" and watching all God has in mind to accomplish through it. Precious friendships, a strengthening marriage, the work of the Kingdom, mentoring younger women, and the list goes on.

And then, one day, "In the twinkling of an eye" it will all be over. Instead of "looking through the glass dimly" at eternity, it will be the other way around! I will look back with dim recollections of the life I am living at this very moment, yet everything done and accomplished in the name of Christ will remain. I don't know exactly how that works, but I know it's true, because God declares it in His Word, and His Word never fails.

So with whatever time I have left, I echo the words of Paul in Philippians 3:13-14, "I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the high call of God in Christ Jesus."

There is nothing more satisfying than a life well-lived for Christ and nothing worse than a life lived and gone in vain.