PEDDLING BACKWARDS

Do you ever get the feeling that sometimes, you are not making "forward" progress and that you must be "peddling backwards" and don't know it. It is a little like "treading water". You work really hard and try your best but you don't seem to get TO anywhere different. I am not sure if this is a common experience amongst the human race because I haven't heard anyone else talking about it.

Maybe I just expect to accomplish too much in a day, and when the day doesn't produce the desired results, I feel like a failure or that I didn't try hard enough, or that I must have been peddling backwards and it isn't a comfortable feeling and another day has gone from my life.

I have been so reflective lately. Don't know if it is due to my 67th birthday last week, or the death of a person I knew long ago when I was a teen. He died of a heart attack alone in his house and wasn't found for a couple of days. I thought that was such a sad way to go when he had given so much to the church he attended for more than 50 years and to those he knew. He helped many people along the way in so many different ways. Whatever anyone needed, he was willing to do. He passed away with his small house packed-to-the-gills and his former wife had to hire someone to clean it out. He left no information about what he wanted done, or how to do it or funds to do it. It was almost as though he didn't exist for the 70+ years he lived.

So when I go (as we all will do at some point), what will I leave behind? Will I leave a mess of my collected "stuff" for a loved one to deal with and dispose of? Will I pass away alone? Will I leave instructions and funds to take care of what needs to be taken care of after I am no longer here? Death is such a bad word and no one likes to think about it, or plan for it as far as what is left for our loved ones to deal with and take care of.

How we organize our present life impacts our loved ones today but also after we are gone. I purpose to get my "house-in-better-order" so my loved ones will not have to deal with a big mess (I can't promise NO mess!). Maybe living my life in a simpler way, with simpler "stuff" will be a good beginning. AND that goes against all that I am...a collector of cooking pans/dishes etc, of stamping stuff, of books, of material (when I used to sew) and the accumulated items of 42-almost-43 years of marriage. And that is just my side of the ledger. Now that we have two houses, we have duplicates of some things. Where will all of it go when we are gone?

And the big question is, "Where do WE go when we check out?"

The answer I have found for myself is in Jesus Christ. HE IS the WAY, and the TRUTH, and the LIGHT. NO ONE comes to the Father but through a belief in Jesus, a personal walk with HIM, and acceptance of HIS LORDSHIP over their life. So this world and all my stuff will pass away. When HE returns for those who believe in HIM, may I be found ready, letting go of what lies behind and clinging to a future with HIM. We are HIS creation, made by HIM, and will dwell with HIM forever.