“Dost thou love life?
Then do not squander time,
for that is the stuff life is made of.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Walking through a local thrift store with my oldest daughter, looking for wool for our random knitting and crochet projects, I heard the cheerful sound in the cluttered background.
A discarded, perhaps once loved, authentic German cuckoo clock, hung beside the thrift store till. My heart sang when I heard this sound. I have been dreaming of owning for one for years … out of style as they as they are, to me, the cuckoo clock holds a fascinating, enchanting way of the tale of time.
And as a gift from my husband, now … I can hear the sweet song of this vintage clock, hung in the kitchen of our home. Every half hour, the miniature forest green shutters open, the tiny wooden bird chirps and the clock sings a whimsical music-box song …
… and now, hearing the chimes every half hour has made me realize how quickly time passes during the day…
And tonight, as I hear the cheerful melody of the clock, I also see six black dresses hung in the hallway. Underneath, six pairs of black church shoes are ready for a morning spent surrounded with death.
For when the world continues on tomorrow with a regular winter Saturday of regular everyday living, time will stand still for one family. Quietly behind the scenes, the girls and I will be spending the morning at the funeral home giving our condolences to a father of two who lost his wife this week.
Not a family member by blood … but a family member in Christ.
And while I realize while we were not close friends and our paths mostly crossed on Sundays when we shared the church pew together, she was a part of our extended church family. A family member who we took meals to while she lay ill in her home over the winter months. A family member who we prayed continually for around our dinner table. A family member who always smiled at my girls when we filed into the same row as her Sunday after Sunday. She, too, had daughters. Daughters who are now motherless. A husband who is now a widower.
And I realize … as I hear the clock sing and time ticks by, life, this mere existence on earth, is vapor. And each day is a gift. We hear that over and over, but we forget, don’t we? Life is foggy and busy and filled with ‘things’ and we forget that each moment and every day is a fragile, important treasure.
But sometimes, being the wife of a mortician means you have a front row seat to a daily reminder of this. You hear it and feel it more. It is constantly before our family.
Time is fleeting and needs to be redeemed.
Days are numbered.
Life is short, eternity is long, as John Piper says.
Life is a gift.
The children we have today to hug and love and kiss and teach and carry and cuddle … these children they are gifts of today. Gifts from God. Each day with them is a loan from Father that cannot be taken for granted. And we do not know how long our husband, our daughter, our son, our mother will be with us on earth. I am so grateful to know we will meet again in Heaven – this brings my heart peace.
When my husband calls me at the dinner hour to say he has to work late, it is because someone just lost that gift of being with the one they love.
They have said an earthly goodbye to their wife. Their husband. Their baby.
Time here on this tiny earth is but a vapor. I do not want to waste any of it – minutes that add up to be hours that can be spent nurturing my children, protecting my marriage, following God and investing in the eternal.
It is but a vapor … let us not waste it on frivilous, mindless ways.
“For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appears for a little time
and then vanishes away.”
- ~ James 4:14
by Gigi
3 comments