As many of you know, my Dad died suddenly this week. It was last Tuesday - a bright, sunny February day. I was at work and he was running a daily errand for my sister. As he performed a simple daily task he had an Aortic Aneurysm and died while driving down the road.
As I have thought of the events the last few days I first confront my failure to do what I believe I should have been doing and I also have to examine the frailty of life itself. I can easily reason with myself and excuse myself for our relationship. I can say that our personalities are similar in some ways - the main way in that we were both fairly quiet people and though we got along and I respected him greatly - many of our conversations were plagued with uncomfortable silences. My Dad and Mom divorced when I was fairly young and I could use that as an excuse.
What I can't use as excuses are what he has done - the weekend visits and car rides, going to Falcons and Flames games with him when I was a teen. Also letting me live with him during my senior year of High School rather than me having to leave my friends and move to a different town when my Mom and Step Dad moved to Macon. The meals he has bought. The money he loaned me to get me through some tough times in college. I missed seeing him two Fridays ago when I was in the same county because my job went a little long and I didn't want to get home too late.
Life is so frail
An aneurysm, a heart attack, a car wreck can suddenly snatch the ones we love from this life. Or sometimes lingering diseases like cancer can slowly steal the life from them. Hebrews 9:27 says that it is appointed for us to die once - it is something that we will all do and we need to take advantage of every moment we have.
There are a few things that I urge each one of you to do.
Cover you loved ones in prayer.
Take care of what you can do to protect your life - lose weight, exercise, etc.
Make the most of the minutes you have with family and friends.
See what mission God has for you today.
With Some Regrets, Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment