THE PASSENGER’s LOG
STARDATE 14 Jun 2021
LINDA
OK here are some thoughts and questions I have for the Captain of this Voyage and this will go to The Passengers log for the Voyage and your review. Hold on to you garter belts this is not the usual fare.
My purpose when I began was to chronicle what I learn in this voyage. Learning does not come without questions and this post brings some of those to bare. (I’m not sure if I should apologize now for the honesty that is within but in any event, here is my post.)
I’m sitting out here by my pond fishing…enjoying a beautiful afternoon. We’ve enjoyed the weekend at Legacy of Honor and our time spent with the Ohio Flags of Honor honoring those killed in wars since 2001. I guess since 9/11 is the best way to describe it.
I learned yesterday a friend of mine from high school, not a close friend I suppose but an acquaintance, has died. Her name is Linda. She was a young lady that everybody knew and she was a very smart, very likable lady. And ‘lady’ fits her.
She’s my age at her death and as I get older, that happens more frequently! I do not know what ailment took her but I do not doubt she fought it to the last.
I know the Bible teaches that each one of us has a beginning date and a date which we will leave this earth and go into our eternity wherever we have chosen that to be.
What I wonder, as I sit here and fish, is “What purpose am I serving as I live and what purpose will my death, whenever it is, have?” God uses all things to bring glory to Himself in some fashion, so what have I added to that purpose or those purposes by my life?
I met men over this weekend who are in their 70’s and 80’s and 90s and what difference is it making that they’re still here? How does that affect God’s divine plan and how does Linda leaving now play a part in God‘s plan? Is there something her grandchildren have to learn that they can’t learn if she’s here? Something they have to learn or her children have to learn through her absence? I wonder.
What about me? What purpose does it serve in God’s great plan that I leave sooner rather than later? A great mystery of life is the how and why our lives on earth come to end when they do. I said early on that I want to squeeze the very last drop of life out of every single day. Since then, I have had days, I admit, that have squeezed the last bit of life out of me! Still, life is good.
It’s funny, when I retired from law enforcement, it was crucial for me to know that in all those years, all the hard work, and even in all the good times, that I had made some modicum of difference. Now, that question takes on an even greater weight.
So, that is the crux of it… what difference do I make whether I’m here or whether I’m gone? That is the question we all should answer. I hope you can before someone tells you that your time is short. Being called to heaven is by no stretch of the imagination a punishment but a reward. Most of us are willing to wait a little longer for our reward if it is Okay with God.
I’m going to go knock on the Captain’s cabin door and sit down with Him for a while.
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