May 3, 1986
11:07 A.M.
I am a man most blessed to date. My life is yet only a snap of the fingers in time. Yet in my short life I have enjoyed experiences, and felt pain and happiness, so often and in such depth that only God, and those who love me and whom I love, can begin to share those experiences. And only God and I really know how each of these encounters and occasions has touched this man.
I have had the privilege of courting and marrying and sharing 42 years with the most special and precious woman in creation. I have shared with her and with God, the privilege of creating new lives for God’s Kingdom and to help replenish the human family. I have suffered and shared with her the heartache of the death and burial of our first born, and known the hope that we will see him again in eternity. I have shared the joys and sorrows and the good health and the sicknesses of our other three children. I have watched them all grow to maturity and led by God’s Holy Spirit, each one has been born anew in Jesus Christ, which assures that we will all be together in eternity. I have shared, as all three of them have in their own self-reliance and with God’s help, completed their college education and become useful and conscientious citizens, with deep concerns and firm dedication to being lights in the increasing darkness of the world.
I have shared the joy and companionship of my three children, together and each in turn. And God has given me a son-in-law that has become a blessed son and another companion and a full part of my life.
I have shared the joys and pains of a number of very special people who have become a very part of me. God has given me great love and a compassion for all people, but with a few he has permitted me a closeness and a bond that is so powerful and so complete that I inwardly (and sometimes outwardly) weep when they weep, laugh when they laugh, share and care completely in their ups and downs, their likes and dislikes, their heavens and their hells.
I appreciate a cool walk in the winter snow; a moonlight walk along a sandy beach, or lying beneath a metal roof in a rainstorm. I enjoy watching the freedom of the birds as they fly and at times I have flown alone in one of man’s aircraft and have become one of the birds, soaring and climbing and turning and thrilling to the pure joy of being a bird. Only those who love to fly can appreciate the fullness of the pleasure that becomes mine when I am up in the sky and am no longer just guiding an airplane, but instead that machine has become an extension of myself and I am completely the man-bird.
I love to watch children play and listen to their laughter. I enjoy being with young people. I show them my love and they often show me love in return. I love to visit with older people. They have lived so much and if I but truly listen, and not let their repetitions and their forgetfulness bother me; I learn many things and add fullness to my life and pleasure and joy to theirs.
How sad that so many folks do not pause to smell the flowers. Today I smelled a few. I watched the early sunshine glistening on the dew, I watched two robins mate in the meadow outside my window, I watched a gopher hiding behind a pile of horse-dung, hoping I didn’t see him; I hugged by wife and each of my four children several times, I untied a knot in my shoelace and thanked God for the sunshine, the robins, the gopher, my wife, my children and my fingernails. I drove my car, and it too is an extension of my being. I said hi to a number of friends and family and hugged all who wanted to be hugged. I administered the commissioning oath to my son as he accepted a commission as a second lieutenant into the United States Air Force. A few years of happiness slipped out on me as I looked with humble pride at this new air force officer, whom God had given me as a son. Tomorrow he will graduate with an electrical engineering degree.
My first, my second and now my third. All, with God’s help and grace, very special people. . . . . .And I thanked God again. No drug culture, no shoplifting; no trouble with police, no disrespect for law and government, no disrespect for their Father and Mother, no . . .
No, not perfect. . .but caring. . .and I wondered why so often young people go wrong who have parents just as concerned as Bernadine and I, and I thanked God again for His Grace.
I ate dinner with five wonderful people. We made it a celebration of my son’s commissioning and his graduation. The food was good; the fellowship better. We talked and visited and my love reached out to Bernadine, and my children; and then bounced right back until my cup was full and running over. When one gets six people that full of love together, I guess all of the cups run over.
And, too, it’s the little things, a “hi” from my younger daughter a “What cha doing, dad” from my son, a hug from my older daughter, a hand slipped into mine from Bernadine, a “What’s up” from my son-in-law, and phone calls from friends.
All day today I smelled the flowers. I even enjoyed an audience of 8 children and two friends as I hived a swarm of bees, which (bees) were hanging in an azalea bush. And when the bees were moving into the hive I smelled the azaleas and examined the yellow blossoms, and the pale green leaves and the segmented stems, and the small cluster of bees still clinging on the one limb.
And then as I turned away, and as darkness began to close in, I noticed a dead bee, deep within one of the bell shaped flowers. And I said out loud, “Certainly you, my friend, have not gone through life without smelling the flowers.”
11:07
PM
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