Like a Vapor

 Why is it in some instances time seems to crawl? Like a student waiting for the bell to ring to get out of school for the day or weekend. Like a child slowly counting days off the calendar until Christmas. Or the worker waiting for quitting time. It can happen to drivers waiting in a drive through pick up line at a restaurant or at a red light impatiently waiting for the light to turn green. 

There are other instances when time seems time fly by. Like parents sitting at commencement exercises for their child wondering where the time went. How is it possibler that little bundle of joy has grown and already finished high school? It took 18 years but somehow it seems to have passed much faster than that. Or a daddy walking a daugher down the aisle at her wedding. How did his little girl grow up so fast and is now starting a family of her own. Pictures on the wall and a desk capture special moments when those children were young.The credenza behind my desk is littered with pictures of our four sons fron toddlers to adulthood. Brenda andI,I like so many before us, are learning to adjust to lives as empty nesters. This will the first summer in 22 years we have not had at least one or more of our four sons living with us for the summer. They have all graduated college now. One is married. Two are working on their Masters Degree. The other is finishing up to be certified to teach and coach. Our four little boys are now four grown men. Where did the time go?

To the right of my computer screen is a bridal portrait of Brenda just days before we married. That was 34 years ago now. Where did the time go? It has flown by in decades of chasing careers, raising children, sitting in the stands of more ball games from little leauge to collegiate sports than we can count, to multiple moves in ministry. We are more madly in love than ever, but time has taken its toll on both of us. Time has flown by. 

Later this morning I will preach the funeral for an 88 year old lady. I am sure time flew by for her as well. I thoght about her as a little girl toting her younger brother on her hip, and climbing trees. Then she grew up and got married. Life flew by as an adult with moves and major milestones. Sadly, six years ago she got diagnosed with that cruel diseasse Alzheimers. I bet she never planned on that as a little girl perched on a limb in a tree surveying the world beneath. Time stops for no one. 

James 4:14 reminds us that we are only on this earth for a little while and that life is like a vapor that appears for a little while and then it vanishes. Cemeteries are filled with grave markers indicating the date a person was born then a dash followed by the date they died. Here for a little while and then gone. Like bluebonnets in the spring. Only here for a little while. 

We look in the mirror and wonder where the time went. I feel like a young man on the inside, but joints tell me a different story. We must not take life for granted and espcially life with those we love for granted. Let us squeeze every moment out of life we can with those we love. For life is like vapor. We are only here for a little while.