Half the people were dead…in my address book.
It all started so innocently looking for an elusive phone number in my original spiral-bound address book. This keeper-of-friends-and-relatives has a kitty on the cover. It’s like a forever-friend; but no so much anymore.
That phone-number search and a couple of funerals for friend a few years my junior led me to continue flipping through its pages.
“It must just be this page,” I said to myself.
It wasn’t just that page.
I realized that half of those listed would never again be at the other end of a phone call.
As we turn the page on another year, we must face the fact that funerals will be part of the 365 days ahead. I pray it not to be for myself, but no man knows his hour.
Out of all of the things we hope and plan for the New Year, this “eventuality” is not at the top our resolutions list. No matter. We do not have a say in such matters.
Where does this leave us in our thinking for the New Year?
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I would like to believe that given enough time to look through that book again, I would dial those who can still answer their phones a bit more often, possibly even (ugh!) jotting a snail-mail card or even deliberately planning a trip that might require some time-and-money sacrifice.
I resolve to remember that half of them are still alive.
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: Portals are found in the most unlikely of places. Simply turning a page can help us turn a new leaf in the year ahead.
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law…Be devoted to one another in love…My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends…You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity.”
Romans 13:8 NIV, Romans 12:10 NIV, John 15:12,13 NIV, Colossians 3:12-14 GNTA