Life is Short

March 15, 2009

Setting Our Church on Fire

Life is Short!
During Lent we reflect upon our lives and the life of Jesus. Jesus knew His life would be cut short and made every day count. How do you make every day count? Do you get up everyday and greet the new day with hope and energy or do you crawl out of bed with your mind already cluttered from the tasks that lie ahead and your eternal mental to-do list is running amok? If Jesus were to be watching you live your life what do you think He’d say? He probably would chastise us for being too busy and caught up in our own little dramas and forgetting the needs of the people around us.

As I write I am reminded of my days as a medical technologist working at the Deaconess Hospital in Boston. At lunchtime, in the summer, very often we would sit outside. We’d talk and gripe over how busy and stressed out we were. One day a patient, in a Johnny and on portable IV, who had obviously been through chemo, came by and sat down next to us… it suddenly seemed oh so silly to be thinking so much of ourselves and our problems.

When I returned from lunch that day I looked over my workload. I needed to analyze about a hundred tubes of blood for HIV. Each one of those tubes represented a man, woman or child, who, within 24 hours, may or may not be given a death sentence depending upon the results of my analysis. As I thought about those who would be diagnosed as HIV-positive, my own problems seemed to be so very insignificant and I began to thank God for my health and my fortunes in life.

This Lent let us notice the people around us. Let us help those we can through action and prayer. God gave us life, Jesus taught us how to live it and the Holy Spirit guides us every day. Life is precious… let’s not waste it.
God Bless – Holly Clark