LIFE REVIEW!

LIFE REVIEW!

Ps 90:10

10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

Ps 90:12

12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

           Evidently my warranty is expired! I have done much more than I will yet do but I am still doing it! Perhaps I am a late bloomer because I learned yesterday that I am only one Spring course, one workshop, and one thesis away from a Masters degree. Imagine that.

           Faces! That is what I see when I do a life review. Along the way I have garnered many everlasting friends. I am separated from most of them by hundreds of miles. Some are continents away. I long to gather all of them together in one place for a reunion. I expect God to do that very thing eventually.

           I am motivated rather than morbid about my life review. I am reminded of a poem by Rudyard Kipling simply titled IF. It is a bit long but worth the read.

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Dear Lord, let me run my race with patience while looking to You as the author and finisher of my faith. AMEN