BENTONVILLE — By the time you read this column, I will have completed my chemotherapy and radiation treatments — 25 chemo and 25 radiation sessions. I’m happy to report that the cancer is apparently in remission and I hope it stays that way for some time. As I reflect back upon the months just completed, I cannot help but reflect on the blessings I have experienced because of you.
Each person who breathed a prayer in my behalf, who took time to send me e-mail and cards and letters, and to those who read this column faithfully, as many have told me, it is because of your faith that I have made it through the treatments with these great results. I am so blessed and I thank you. The outcome is yet to be totally known as of this date, but I can honestly say, whatever the result, it will have been a wonderful exercise in faith, coupled with a joyful heart giving God thanks for all my many blessings.
So much for my modulations. You will note that the title for this week’s column is “525,600” and I’ll bet many of you already know the answer. It’s the number of minutes in a year. Now, I confess I’ve never really spent much time considering the amount of time I have on this planet. Because of this attack by cancer, I know now that I should be paying close attention to every minute. And need to make certain that those minutes are positive ones and ones that will be important to God. I don’t need to be like the rabbit in “Alice in Wonderland” that was always chiming “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date, no time to say hello, goodbye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.”
That tendency to be so involved in so many activities is really prevalent during Advent with parties, parades, shopping and visiting. We can become overexerted before we know it and then wonder what in the world just happened to all my time?
At a small Methodist Church in Georgetown, Texas, we listened to the pastor speak of time in very different ways. We speak, she said, of “time to get ready” and “time is of the essence” and numerous other ways we acknowledge time, but do we really value the time we have on this earth? Have we really pondered, deep down, the meaning of life in terms of time?
Her words reminded me of the beautiful poem by Linda Ellis called “The Dash” which vividly pointed out that “it matters not how much we own; the cars, the house, the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash.”
Now that my life is no longer filled with hours of treatment and/or recovery from treatment, I find that I’m fighting the temptation to just get busy again and forget the valuable lesson this brush with death taught. Instead of running to and fro, and back and forth, I want to make each moment of whatever portion of time I have left to offer back to those who supported me through this battle more of myself. Shalom!
Bob Haynes is a freelance writer.