Life Is Short, Eat Dessert First!

I Corinthians 7 29a,31 -- "But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on...those who use the world should be as though they did not make full use of it; for the time of this world is passing."

After a full week of family synchronized coughing, sneezing, chilling, moaning, tissue-using, blanket-wearing misery, I look about the after-math and see a forgotten battle field in a long-lost war zone. Empty paint  buckets [for those stomach emergencies], throat lozenge wrappers, pop-cicle sticks, and I kid you not, one Progresso soup can top litter the floor underneath, in between, and wrapped inside of a plethora of blankets. [I had no idea we even HAD that many blankets. We live in Florida, for crying out loud.]  I'm itching to vacuum the floor but I have no idea where it is.  The television console has a layer of dust thick enough for the bunnies in it to build a snow-man, and let's not get me started on what the kitchen looks like. [I think someone's soup exploded in the microwave].  I sigh deep. Fever broken but muscles exhausted, I start cleaning it all up.  And then I remember that I have endeavored to be a thankful soul and thank the Lord that I AM up and moving about, now.

Jaw set in determination, I start in the living room.

Tyler, in Zombie form, shuffles in from sleep and plops down on the couch.  In an instant, in full fledged animated vigor he begins telling me about his victory and lordship over the boss battle in Borderlands. "Mom," he says, "PLEASE join me for a minute.  You've GOT to see this...and I can level you up in a snap. Your character will have major XP points!"

His big beautiful amber eyes are looking up at me in wiggly anime' fashion.  I'm really thinking that I'm just going to tell him the game can wait until I get this disaster cleaned up, but I stop short of those words. My babiest baby will be fifteen next week.  He's not always going to beg me to sit down and play a video game with him.  Right NOW, he is, and right NOW, I CAN.

So we play.

For the time of this world, of this stage in Tyler's life, of the physical stage in mine [I AM getting older], of this point on the Dalton family time-line, is passing. I must make full use of it, as if I've never known the full use of it.

When my husband still worked down-down in Jacksonville, he stopped at the cross-walk that lead to his building and waited for the flashing red hand to turn into a little white stick-figure blinking in "walk" motion. And that's when he heard the breaks screaming and the tires squealing in every rubber effort to stop.  But it was too late.  One of Steven's co-workers, heading to work just like he was, crossing the street further down the strip, stepped out in front of a stopped public bus and didn't see the car speeding around to pass it. The co-worker was killed instantly. It would be days before my husband could get around the shock of that moment.  That morning, as Steven kissed me and the boys good-bye, just like he did every morning, his co-worker had done the same thing at his house, with his wife and children.  And that was the last time they would ever see him alive.

We are not promised that we will have tomorrow.  We are not promised that we will get home safely from work.  That we will get the house clean so we can later play. That we will have a second opportunity to share Jesus with our cube-mate, our neighbor, or fellow class-mate.  The time of this world is passing.  We need to make full use of it....use every moment in it like there's no tomorrow.  Because you never know when there really won't be one.