This Life We Have...

There's something about going to a funeral-visitation
and listening to what people remember about the deceased person that is a huge reality check...
the memory can be something that seemed like a little thing in the moment,
but made an impression quite unawares! 

So here's to the life we Have before it becomes the life we had!

As for man, his days are like grass—

he blooms like a flower of the field;

when the wind passes over, it vanishes,

and its place remembers it no more. 

Psalm 103:15-16

 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. 

What is your life?

 You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

James 4:14

So much of what we do may seem like nothing much at all

The days fly by as you and I reply to sundry call

Where in time’s seasoned swirl that twirls us round and round again

We might forget the awesome Yet that waits and who knows when

Life’s gauzy half-breath veil will fail and ope an Awesome Door

Where all that will remain is what we are remembered for

The give and take that sometimes shakes our will and wallets dry

The yes and no that in the moment is just a reply

The words we say that slip away through lips to listening ears

Melds moments into That which in a twinkle disappears

And thus Becomes the sum of all we said, did, took and gave

How very holy then, this one and only life we have

The plush brush that paints pictures on the canvas of the heart

Seems common but is sacred in its rendering of art

For graves can never gather into bearings cold and staid

The echoes warm with laughter or the memories we made

Where much of what we do may seem like nothing much at all

But shape, for those who yet remain the pictures they recall

...as all who've gone before cannot return to tell the worth
Of total compensation for what seemed so small on earth
Where now the days fly by like flashes on a phantom reel
But then, when the last breath is spent, The Ultimate Reveal
Where God forbid we turned our backs on His amazing grace
Until we open up our eyes and meet Him face to face

© Janet Martin

I wrote the first three stanzas before church
then the message spoke so clearly of The Big Picture I needed to squeeze in one more stanza!
Yes, making great memories is great but at the end of our lives if that is all we have it is not enough!
For all we can keep at the end of our lives is what we gave away!
Beginning with surrender of Self.

Here is a link to the message:
Free To Be Serving 
(one of my favourite quotes in this message is by Mother Theresa...
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God
who is sending a love letter to the world.)

Job 34:11
For according to a man's deeds, He repays him; according to a man's ways, He brings consequences.

Matthew 16:27
For the Son of Man will come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will repay each one according to what he has done.