Between Two Dates:What Will Our Story Be?

Yellowed and torn with age, the newspapers held obituaries as varied as the lives they represented. There were stories of childhood lost, lingering illness with hope for recovery, the mentioning of a graduation still looked forward to, a marriage ended in one spouse’s death when only months old, and the elderly who reached their 80’s and 90’s in a time when the average lifespan hovered at age forty. There were testimonies of receiving Christ and being baptized, of character traits exhibited, accomplishments, and displays of courage. What isn’t printed on those old pages is a list of the deceased’s possessions, or how much money they had on deposit. Those things were no longer of importance at their passing.

There is a beautiful poem written by Linda Ellis, entitled “The Dash.” It speaks of the importance of how our lives here affect others. How our love and respect toward others will be remembered, not our accumulation of worldly goods. It reminds us that we all touch the lives of others around us no matter how long our earthly life lasts. And we all leave something of who we are behind.

Length of years on earth is not promised, as the yellowed pages of old newspapers attest to. Long years only provide for more opportunities to live right and leave a legacy that blesses others when we are gone. And how we start in life is not what matters most, but how we finish! Today is not too late for change. No one wants to dwell on the truth that they will someday pass from this life, but the time will come. We will all have a grave-marker with two dates, and a lifetime lived in between…what will our story be?

Read the inspiring poem by Linda Ellis here: http://www.linda-ellis.com/the-dash-the-dash-poem-by-linda-ellis-.html