How much longer?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have worries in my heart?...Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
—Psalms 13:2-3

"Dad, is this thing over yet? How much longer?"

That was the question early yesterday morning from the Arlington, VA, area, asked by our daughter as she and her husband dealt with Hurricane Irene in the home they had purchased just Friday! Without power — as were about two million others on the eastern seaboard — they just wanted to know how much longer Irene would be around. It had been 18 hours already.

"Is it over yet? How much longer?" You asked that as a child when you got your first vaccines or watched a scary movie. You asked it when you went through your first storm. You asked it when you had to sit through an interminable program (like a graduation). You asked it when you sat with your sick child. You ask it of the economic mess our country is in now.

"Is it over yet? How much longer?" You want to know so you can muster the energy to cope, to keep a realistic view of what is happening. But you need someone to tell you, someone who knows what you don’t know, who can see what you can’t see.

Where did the summer go?

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven.
—Ecclesiastes 3:1

School starts tomorrow for the students, parents, and teachers of Hillsborough County. Each year it seems students like the rest of us struggle with one of the most basic of educational lessons: time management.

All the plans of what you would do seem a distant memory facing the reality of life; "tempus fugit" … time flees!

Whether in your personal world or clinical world, time not only flees but flies. Projects to be started get replaced with by other more "urgent" things. Often the urgent things could have been delegated to another or rescheduled, but too frequently, you assume you have to do get it done yourself. And then find yourself asking the question: "Where did the time go?"

How you use your time is your choice. Referees call it, prisoners keep it, musicians mark it, historians record it, loafers kill it, statisticians keep it, daydreamers waste it, procrastinators need more of it. Busy people run out of it!

A dose of you!

The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged."
—Deuteronomy 31:8

Late one night, many years ago, Cathy and I went into our daughter’s room; she was about 7 at the time and sick with a cold and fever.

"Here is a dose of medicine that will help you feel better!" I said.

She looked at me and said; "I don’t want the medicine, I want a dose of you and Mummy. Will you please stay in my room till I go to sleep?"

A dose of you!

You have each experienced this request in one form or another…a child, a friend, family member, a co-worker, even a physician partner. "Will you stay a bit? What I really need is a 'dose of you,' your voice, your thoughts, your presence!"

When you realize their need and are present to them, not as a functionalist (one performing a task), but as the unique and gifted person you are, something special happens when listening and caring transform the moment.

Love went over the edge

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
—1 Corinthians 13:13

I was putting a shelf on the top of a built-in piece of furniture so we could display some of our collection of wooden ducks and loons. Cathy always places a large wood cutout word like FAITH. LOVE, HOPE up there as well. As I was setting up the shelf, LOVE went sliding towards the wall and slipped all the way down between the built-in and the wall. Impossible to get with any ease!

"Love just went over the edge!" I hollered to Cathy.

"Well, get it back will you?" she instructed.

Get love back! Isn’t that the desire of so many hearts? Some speak it out loud, others quietly pine, but all live out their hope of getting love back. Whether we know it or not the longings of our hearts all seek the real source of love. At many points in life’s journeys each of us want to get love back.

Who is #1?

Jesus told them, "In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called 'friends of the people.' But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant.
—Luke 22:25-26
Everyone wants to be #1 sometime. Whether in school with test results, or competing in sports and winning first prize, being number one is fun stuff. The western economy is built around the premise that everyone wants to be #1; cars, apparel, skin softener, mascara, even pet food is marketed to appeal to the owner’s ego!

The messages of the market place are that you are #1 or could be with a little…

The message of scripture is that you are created on purpose, with a future and a hope, and that your calling is to be much more than #1…you are called to serve and thereby invite others to see that being #1 is not where it is at.