AN AFFIRMATION OF FAITH
(Written by The Rev. Dennis Posno)
My times are in God’s hands.
Because my hope is in God, I can take heart.
I believe in God who is with me in Love:
to comfort my sorrows … to forgive my sins.
I believe in God who is with me in Power:
to be my strength in weakness …
to be my hope in times of trouble.
I believe in God who is with me in Holiness:
in whose presence I am accountable …
by whose mercy I am judged …
in whose love I am kept.
I believe in God who is with me in amazing grace:
to bless me today and everyday …
now and even into eternity.
I believe in God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit –
who will be first and always in my heart.
AMEN.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (Today’s New International Version)
A Time for Everything
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
A woman had a frightful accident.
She was rushed to the hospital,
and in what seemed like twilight moments,
she drifted between the land of the living
and the land of the dead.
She had what you would call a near death experience
where she felt a great peace
and basked in a glowing and warming light.
And in this moment God said to her:
“Gladys. You are not going to die. You are going to live.
For another 40 years, 8 months and 17 days.”
And she moved away from that place of peace and light and awoke.
After she was discharged from hospital,
renewed and revitalized at this incredible new lease on life,
she decided that if she had all that time to live,
that if she had been given a second chance, so to speak,
she was going to get herself fixed up and made over.
She had a face lift …
she had a breast enhancement …
she had a tummy tuck and liposuction …
she had permanent makeup put on to make her appear younger …
she had her teeth bleached and laser surgery done on her eyes …
hands and feet and everything in between were “done over.”
She was a new woman from head to toe.
She looked like a million bucks.
And it was as she was walking out of a clinic after her last procedure
that she walked out into the street and was hit by a bus, and died.
Gladys had no near death experience this time. She was gone.
And as she stood before the Lord, her Maker, she said,
“Lord, the last time we had a heart to heart
You told me that I would live another
40 years, 8 months and 17 days.
What happened?”
The Lord looked at her and said,
“Gladys? Is that YOU? I didn’t recognize you!”
Well, whether it’s 40 years, 8 months and 17 days you have left,
or whether you really don’t know, the question is:
“What are you going to do with it?
How are you going to fill the moments of your days …
the time that is God’s gift to you?”
It was Solomon who wrote those familiar words about time,
some 3,000 years ago:
“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens.”
And he goes on to say that there is “a time to be born and a time to die”
and all of the war and peace, planting and harvesting times and experiences in between our beginnings and endings.
And we know about time.
Some people kill it … others waste it …
sometimes it flies … at other times it just seems to drag on …
sometimes it’s sweet … often it’s bitter …
but this much is true about time: we cannot hoard it.
Everything … eventually … passes away.
As Gladys discovered.
In answering the question “What are you going to do with it?”
let me share the following remembrance,
prompted by a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago
with a young friend of mine,
who is about the age I was at the time of this remembrance.
He is dealing with some health issues, largely related to stress,
that I was able to persuade him to make an appointment with his doctor about.
Truth is, if he’s not careful about what he’s doing and how he’s handling things,
he may find himself at a more serious place than simply dealing with stress.
I was 38 years old,
minister at Central United Church in Sault Ste. Marie –
a big and demanding church not unlike Collier.
I was flying to London, my home town.
As Chair of Algoma Presbytery I was going to attend
a meeting of the Executive of London Conference.
On paper it all looked good ...
a few days away ...
a change of routine and pace ...
a change to visit with my family.
I attended the first day of meetings
from 2 in the afternoon until 10 at night ...
come home to my Mon’s place and hit the sack.
Early the morning I awoke. It was 4:30 a.m.
Pains pressed across my chest.
There was heaviness and numbness in my left arm.
I didn’t know what was happening:
maybe slept on my arm the wrong way ...
maybe it was indigestion ...
maybe I was having a heart attack. I didn’t know.
I waited for about 20 minutes.
The pain and heaviness wasn’t subsiding.
So I called out to my Mom and told her what was happening.
I think I just about gave her a heart attack.
We got dressed and Mom drove me to Victoria Hospital.
When we got to the emergency department
I told them what was happening
and I was looked after immediately - no wait time.
I was put on to an intravenous drip,
hooked up to a heart monitor.
The pain would not go away
and after receiving nitro it subsided.
An ECG was done ... and blood work ...
the Red Team of 4 doctors attended ...
asked question after question about the pain.
Now I know many of you have been where I was during that time.
Flat on your back.
Anxious.
Not knowing what’s wrong.
Frightened.
Surrounded by people but feeling very much alone.
Imagining the worst but hoping for the best.
Funny things flash through your mind.
They did for me at any rate.
“Is this it? Am I going to die?”
I thought it ironic that I should be in the hospital
where I was born almost 39 years earlier.
I pulled out a picture of my kids and wanted to cry.
I wanted Kim with me but she was at home in the Sault.
It was the first time in my life
when I was really conscious of my own mortality:
not philosophically or theologically - but really ...
not objectively - but subjectively ...
not other people’s generally - but mine specifically.
And it wasn’t fear, really, as much as it was a longing:
I wanted to see the people I loved.
I wanted to say things to them.
There were things yet to be done.
At any rate, the pain subsided, and with the pain the fears.
The doctors reassured me I was okay.
The ECG and blood work and stress test and couple of days for observation
all indicated that I was in excellent health.
Except for stress.
I spoke with a female doctor on the Red Team ... answering her questions.
Was I an A type personality, I was asked?
I didn’t know what that was but when it was explained to me
it was evident that I was.
The prognosis was that I needed to make some changes ...
the things I was doing to myself ...
the things that only I could deal with and change.
I was advised to make some changes or the next time ...
well, there’s been no next time.
I was discharged and after a few days at home with Mom I went home.
I said that funny things flash through your mind.
When I was lying in that hospital bed in the Emergency Department
a little prayer kept running through my head ...
a prayer I prayed as a little boy ...
a prayer we taught our children.
It was probably your prayer, too.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
if I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
And I recalled a little twist to that prayer ...
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should wake before I die ...”
If I should wake before I die.
The prayer stops there.
But it summons up all sorts of last sentences,
all sorts of “I woulds”
and “I’m going tos”
and “I promise tos” ...
all kinds of new resolve.
But the moment certainly got my attention.
It caused me to sit up and take note.
It allowed me to gain some perspective on my life and on life generally.
Here are some things I have learned ...
LIFE IS SHORT.
When you really think about it, although Gladys embraced the notion
that she had 40 years, 8 months and 17 days of life left,
and got herself all fixed up because of it,
life isn’t measured in years and months and days ...
it is measured in heartbeats.
Place your hand on your heart and feel it beating.
And because of its shortness, quantity is not the operative word.
The operative word is quality.
How you look on the outside may be important
but it is not as important as who you are on the inside.
A friend has these words appear on every email she sends …
“The purpose of life is not to be happy.
It is to be useful,
to be honourable,
to be compassionate,
to have it make some difference
that you have lived and lived well. “
And my sense of it is that if life is lived this way, happiness is inevitable.
NO, IT’S NOT THE QUANTITY BUT THE QUALITY ...
IT’S NOT THE EXTERIOR BUT THE INTERIOR ...
IT’S NOT THE DURATION, BUT THE DONATION THAT MATTERS.
My episode in London, all those years ago, and all the years since,
have reminded me of that.
For all of our planning and dreaming
we do not know what life will hold for us tomorrow
or for that matter, today.
Our lives are revealed to us in the moment, a heartbeat at a time.
It may bring joy, or sorrow ...
peace, or trouble ...
love, or discord.
We do not know.
LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
And in the midst of the uncertainties
it is important to have some solid ground to walk on.
We have a blessed assurance as a people of faith.
We do not know what the future holds
but we know who holds the future.
We do not know what today will bring
but we know that we and the day are held in God’s hands.
God’s love is in our today.
And in our tomorrow?
God’s love will meet us there.
Whatever heartbeat time we find ourselves in,
God, in matchless love, is there.
AND LIFE IS FRAGILE ...
a wonderful, delicate balance of body, mind, and spirit.
The way we play ... and work ... and live ... and love ... affect the balance.
Our part is to maintain it.
Because it can be easily upset.
One wrong turn ...
one unresolved conflict ...
one regrettable word or moment.
AND BECAUSE IT IS FRAGILE, IT IS PRECIOUS.
It is too precious to waste on the trivial.
It is too precious to squander on the unimportant.
It is too precious to live with the twin ghosts of regret and fear.
It is too precious to spend carelessly.
It is too precious to be spoiled by anger or jealousy or unkindness.
It is too precious to let it slip -
unfulfilled, un-grasped, unlived -
through your fingers.
LIFE IS SHORT ... UNCERTAIN ... FRAGILE ... PRECIOUS ...
LIVED HEARTBEAT BY HEARTBEAT .
It has been said that
“Life is God’s gift to us.
What we do with our lives becomes our gift to God.”
On this Labour Day weekend,
as many us will get that extra day away from the work do,
let us never forget the work that we are ...
the gift of life that is ours and the gift we make of it to God ...
and the countless ways in which we can make
those “If I should wake before I die” moments,
our heartbeat to heartbeat moments, truly matter.
It was Thoreau who wrote:
“Only that day dawns to which we are truly awake.”
So in your “If I should wake before I die” moments,
when that day dawns,
love extravagantly,
laugh often,
don’t take yourself too seriously,
hold hands with your partner,
play with the kids and grandkids,
go on a picnic,
sleep in,
rub your dog’s stomach
soak up the beauty around you,
phone an old friend,
give thanks for your blessings,
and thank God for the gift of life, the times and seasons, that are yours.
SOLI DEO GLORIA
To God Alone The Glory
