I was just going through YouTube videos recently and there’s one I uploaded for my youngest daughter’s 18th birthday—she is now in her 24th year. It’s set to nostalgic music, and there are over 9 minutes of photos that whiz by covering those first 6,575 days.
Again it struck me just how precious life is, how much we take it for granted, and how little we simply reflect on the eternal things.
The eternal things are the human lives in our lives, for once they’re gone, they’re definitely gone. Anyone who’s experienced loss knows this. It’s stark for our existential sense. We never comprehend just how impossible it is to contemplate the finality of loss.
Against the canvas of life, the things we get stressed, anxious and depressed about are so often not about the things that are the ultimate stressors, anxieties, and depressors.
Those people who were in our lives decades ago, who are still in our lives, those family and close friends, none of them are living forever, and those memories we’ve made are absolutely priceless.
Only as I pondered the photographic tribute I mentioned above have I realised just how busy I’ve been and how much of my daughter’s formative years I’ve seem to have forgotten.
Of course I haven’t forgotten at all. I just prioritised more day-to-day things, as has she, a mother now with a busy loving family.
All this reminded me of was just how much we take the eternal things for granted, and it really doesn’t matter if you’re spiritual or not. Lose a precious soul and you suddenly get eternity—everyone who’s being honest will tell you it’s utter heartache, and that sense of eternal loss never really leaves you.
If only we woke up each day and devoted some of our day to appreciating the things we cannot keep from the things we cannot lose. We cannot keep any physical thing, for they’ll all go to others when we’re gone. Yet, one thing we can never lose is how we feel about a loved one or precious friend, but it is the ultimate loss to lose that person and the ability to express how we feel toward them. We ought to do that now, while we can.
What happens when we stay in touch with what’s truly important—the way we feel about our loved ones and precious friends? It gives us back our perspective and it makes us grateful and thankful. It also protects us from the odious regrets of getting our priorities all wrong through life—when we’ve given precedence to more insignificant issues, and when the loved one or precious friend is finally gone.
There is a state of readiness for whatever might take place—i.e., loss.
That is, if we look back continually from the vantage point of where we’ll be sooner or later—from death, other people’s or our own. From such a viewpoint, we sort out our priorities and from such a stage true wisdom is borne.
Think about how we all age and change throughout life. We’re all in such flux and it seems so hard to believe life was how it was as we reminisce over it 5, 10, 15, 20 years later. But it happened! And, gee, every single day of each of our developing years was important.
Too easily we’re swayed by petty frustrations, insignificant grievances, selfish conflicts, and too easily we lose the true context of our lives. Instead, today we have the opportunity to say to those loved ones, “I love you,” and “this is what you mean to me.” It’s about saving important energy for important things. Don’t miss it.
With many things in this life our second chances ultimately run out. Let’s not put temporary things ahead of eternal things.
Imagine if we lived from the context of eternity. We’d all live vastly different lives, and we’d put far more loving emphasis on our relationships.
No comments:
Post a Comment