Time "Marches" On

Where did March go?

Wasn't it only yesterday we were celebrating all of our family's January and February birthdays, and shoveling snow? Suddenly, basketball is all but over, health care reform has been signed into law, and my grass is ready for it's second mowing! Reds opening day is next week for Pete's sake, and college football spring practice begins tomorrow! How did all of this happen so soon?

Time is something that we cannot stop.

In fact, we can't even slow it down.

Spring has sprung, and I hardly knew it until I looked up yesterday and realized that April was only a day away. March may have been one of the busiest months of my adult life. Important projects around the house have had to stay on the back burner, while I took care of pastoral business. Besides the preaching and teaching duties, there have been many other activities requiring my attention. There is the usual study and sermon prep, and preparation for Easter activities. Upward Basketball and Cheer leading concluded with 66 boys and girls being recognized for their efforts, and the Award Celebration saw over 250 people in attendance. Now we have concluded Upward Soccer registration and evaluations and 86 kids have signed up for that sports ministry. The "Find it Here" activities, and various committee meetings and doctors appointments consumed a tremendous amount of time. I have spent an inordinate amount of time this month in hospitals and funeral homes. There have been family responsibilities, taxes, and bills to pay. Numerous meetings, counselling sessions, several funerals, and a wedding were also sprinkled across the March calendar.

And the time passes ever more quickly. Days turn into weeks, turn into months, turn into years...

Yesterday, while driving through south Ashland, I was reminded anew about how quickly the years go by. On a vacant lot at a busy intersection I saw one of those new generation of birthday greetings. Large yellow letters, (individually stuck into the ground on small metal rods) spelled out a birthday message regarding a long time friend. Seems she was celebrating "20 x 3 birthdays".

"That is impossible", I thought. "She can't be that old."

Then it hit me. I'll be 60 myself in only 7 months!

The Psalmist summed it up like this: " The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away... So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom."

Life is what happens, while we are too busy to notice.