Living Life to the Fullest

I had a couples incidents last year that made me think about the importance of living life to the fullest. Last summer was my 50th class reunion but I had a scheduling conflict and was not able to attend. In the fall I received a letter with a group picture of the my fellow classmates. I have to say they had changed as much as me and I didn't recognize most of them.   

The class of 1962

The other situation was early in the year when my youngest grandson Owen was over to our house. He followed me into my bedroom where I have two pictures on my dresser. One picture is an engagement picture of my husband and me and the other picture is a recent picture of us. Owen looked at the picture of us the way we looked 48 years ago and asked, "Who is that?" I said it was Papa and Mimi. He looked at the picture and then looked at me and then back at the picture quite bewildered and said, "Where did you go?" Obviously he couldn't make the connection to the picture of me 48 years ago and how I look now. We laughed about that but it made me think about all the years in between the high school days and the grand-parenting days.

My engagement picture in 1965

My husband in 1965

Here we are 48 years later!

There are times I still feel like that 20 year old young woman and it doesn't seem like that many years have passed. But when I do a reality check I know that I have lived a lot of years but I have some wonderful memories and stories of those years and wouldn't trade them for anything.  God's Word tells us in John 10:10 that Jesus came that we may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows.)  

I heard a story that Tim Tebow, a football player, told while speaking at a commencement service. He said when you see a tombstone there is a date of birth on left side and the date of death on the right side. He said in between those two dates there is a dash. He told the students how important it is to make those dash years count for eternity. He said that was his goal, not to just live and then someday die but that his dash would be about making a difference in his world and the lives of people he met.

I was so inspired when I heard that. I also want that to be my purpose on earth. Let's all make our dash count so that when we look back on our life we will have good memories of making a difference in our world!