Tuesday, December 16, 2014

“In case I don’t make it back …”

Heading out to the airport last Saturday, a friend stopped by my desk, put her arms around me and said, “I’d better give you a hug in case I don’t make it back.”

She said it lightly but not frivolously. We’ve both watched a number of people slip into eternity in the last 12 months: her health-conscious forty-something dentist from a sudden stroke; a small businessman I used to say hello to every week unexpectedly diagnosed with a brain tumor; a friend’s mother whose passing was medically predictable but still jarred family and friends; and a fellow employee with some kind of wasting disease that remained undiagnosed until it was too late. There are probably more; those are just the recent ones.

Then there was the near-fatal allergic reaction last time my friend ate an in-flight meal ...

But here’s a disturbing thought — or perhaps not so disturbing, depending on your relationship to my heavenly Father: one day she’ll be right. One day she won’t make it back. Or she’ll come back to find I’m no longer on the planet.

It’s a day that’s coming for every one of us.
“Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days,”
reads the New Living Translation of Ephesians 5:16.

That’s a solid piece of advice to take with me today.

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