Hallelujah! It’s over!
As I watched the returns roll in tonight, I basked in the beautiful silence. No phone calls from political volunteers, Super Bowl champions, or B-list TV actors telling me how to vote. No commercials full of melodramatic music and shameful propaganda. It got to the point where I cared more about the end—any end—than any particular candidate or issue. I’m sure I’m not alone.
I don’t know the rules about claiming Old Testament prophecy for modern-day America, but I’ve always loved 2 Chronicles 7:13-15: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” The sermon I heard last weekend pointed out that it’s no accident this passage starts out with humbling ourselves. Pretty much everything good that comes from God starts with people humbling themselves. It’s humbling when your guy loses. It’s humbling to have to follow someone whose ideology is 180 degrees from your own. Yet God says that’s the first step in the healing of our land. Interesting.
I couldn’t vote for Barack Obama because he doesn’t represent my views, but I’m still hopeful that he’ll breathe fresh air into a weary nation. I’m willing to give the guy a chance. I’m also proud to live in a nation that elects its first African-American president just a handful of generations out from the horror of slavery.
Obama’s views offer those of us who don’t agree with him an opportunity—a kick in the butt is more like it—to exercise our personal responsibility and not just our patriotic responsibility. Take abortion, for example, an issue that’s dear to my heart. It’s clear we’re not going to make much political headway in the next four years on this issue, so let’s roll up our sleeves and take our passion to another front. Let’s start investing personally in the lives of the girls and women who are most at-risk for unexpected pregnancies. Let’s tangibly support the brave women who choose to carry their babies and give them up. (I can’t imagine anything harder.) Let’s come alongside the women who keep their babies. That may mean buying them clothes and baby food, or babysitting while they’re earning their GED. Let’s pour our money and time into Christian crisis pregnancy centers that tell women the truth—that human life is never an accident. If the government’s not going to do it for us, let’s make a difference ourselves. I’ve just gotta wonder if this isn’t what Jesus had in mind for us all along.
I’m so thankful that though a lot changed today, He did not. His rule and reign comes with no term limits. Can I hear an amen?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
I Have a Dream, Too
Dreaming about the future doesn’t come natural for me. I’m not much of a dreamer. I’m also not much of a visionary, so any dream I do come up with doesn’t have much impact on the world or my country or even my neighborhood. But I’m starting to dream a big dream for my children—and at the same time realizing the intentionality that it will require from me.
Here’s my projection about the future: With a lot of hard work and by the grace of God, my children will grow up knowing the value of a full night’s sleep, eating at least occasionally from the four food groups, giving good effort, and respecting others. They will have good enough grades to get into good enough colleges and good enough social skills to have good enough friendships. They will have reasonably good manners, good credit, good personal boundaries, and a sense of personal responsibility. With even more of God’s grace, they will have marriages that last, careers that are steady (even fulfilling), and church attendance that is respectable.
These are good things. These are down-on-my-knees-grateful kinds of things. But they’re also cultural things. And the rub for me is that God transcends culture. I recently learned the phrase “cultural captivity.” It means being trapped by one’s culture into certain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. So many of the things our culture describes as “good” are completely out of whack with what we know is important to God (at least if we believe the Bible). Even Christian culture has absorbed many of these beliefs, so that pastors now compete with each other over the size of their churches, and Christian moms become frantic—scary frantic—about how many Scriptures their kids can memorize or how many shoeboxes they can fill for Operation Christmas Child.
My big dream is that my kids will not be captives to our culture and its definition of "the good life." To some extent, I know it’s unavoidable, but in the big areas—how they define their life’s purpose and successes, even how they spend their time—I pray that culture would not be their guide. I pray that Christian culture would not be their guide. I pray that the Spirit of God and the examples He’s given us in Scripture would guide their way. That they’ll feed the hungry. That they’ll preach good news to the poor. That they’ll set the captives free. These are the things to which Jesus gave his 33 years of life on earth. And what do my kids see me giving my life to? Hmmmm.
The scariest part of my big dream is that it begins with a change in me.
Here’s my projection about the future: With a lot of hard work and by the grace of God, my children will grow up knowing the value of a full night’s sleep, eating at least occasionally from the four food groups, giving good effort, and respecting others. They will have good enough grades to get into good enough colleges and good enough social skills to have good enough friendships. They will have reasonably good manners, good credit, good personal boundaries, and a sense of personal responsibility. With even more of God’s grace, they will have marriages that last, careers that are steady (even fulfilling), and church attendance that is respectable.
These are good things. These are down-on-my-knees-grateful kinds of things. But they’re also cultural things. And the rub for me is that God transcends culture. I recently learned the phrase “cultural captivity.” It means being trapped by one’s culture into certain beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. So many of the things our culture describes as “good” are completely out of whack with what we know is important to God (at least if we believe the Bible). Even Christian culture has absorbed many of these beliefs, so that pastors now compete with each other over the size of their churches, and Christian moms become frantic—scary frantic—about how many Scriptures their kids can memorize or how many shoeboxes they can fill for Operation Christmas Child.
My big dream is that my kids will not be captives to our culture and its definition of "the good life." To some extent, I know it’s unavoidable, but in the big areas—how they define their life’s purpose and successes, even how they spend their time—I pray that culture would not be their guide. I pray that Christian culture would not be their guide. I pray that the Spirit of God and the examples He’s given us in Scripture would guide their way. That they’ll feed the hungry. That they’ll preach good news to the poor. That they’ll set the captives free. These are the things to which Jesus gave his 33 years of life on earth. And what do my kids see me giving my life to? Hmmmm.
The scariest part of my big dream is that it begins with a change in me.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Ark Building 101
Building our ark. That’s what getting our house ready for sale feels like. As far as we know from the story in Genesis and the movie with Steve Carell, Noah didn’t have to go out searching for two of every animal, force them to get along, or forklift them onto their new home. He just had to build the ark, and the animals came. They came because that was God’s plan, and what God wants happens.
I’m glad Kevin came up with this helpful mental picture of “building our ark"—in this case, preparing our house to the best of our ability. It’s not ever going to be perfect; it just has to “float” for the person who’s gonna buy it. I reminded myself of this for hours last week as I scrubbed every nook and cranny of my kitchen cupboards. I filled one Mr. Clean Magic Erase Sponge after another, astounded by the dirt that had previously gone unnoticed. (I don’t see dirt. Or dead people. It’s a gift.) It seemed like such trivial, meaningless work. Especially when some kid’s only hours away from spilling a cup of chocolate milk all over the good work Mr. Clean and I have done. I suppose it had to be done, but there were about 10,000 other things that seemed like more fun and fulfilling ways to use naptime.
Probably that’s how Noah felt too as he measured out all those cubits. And he had to deal with all the gawking and pointing from the neighbors. (Although he also had the benefit of grown children and thus more than one minute of clear, consistent thought. I gotta believe he wasn’t getting frequent interruptions from Shem, Ham, and Japheth crying out for assistance in the bathroom.) But think how he felt when the animals actually showed up. Think of his amazement when that first drop of rain fell. God brought it all about, just like He said He would, and Noah knew all that measuring and hammering had not been in vain.
I wouldn’t say our family’s calling to move to a new neighborhood is as strong as Noah’s to save all man- and animalkind, but we are pretty sure God is calling us to build this ark so he can take us to new land. He was faithful to Noah, and He’s faithful to us. The one who calls us is faithful. First Thessalonians 5:24. It’s become my mantra. It’s got a nice rhythm to it when you’re scrubbing cupboards.
I’m glad Kevin came up with this helpful mental picture of “building our ark"—in this case, preparing our house to the best of our ability. It’s not ever going to be perfect; it just has to “float” for the person who’s gonna buy it. I reminded myself of this for hours last week as I scrubbed every nook and cranny of my kitchen cupboards. I filled one Mr. Clean Magic Erase Sponge after another, astounded by the dirt that had previously gone unnoticed. (I don’t see dirt. Or dead people. It’s a gift.) It seemed like such trivial, meaningless work. Especially when some kid’s only hours away from spilling a cup of chocolate milk all over the good work Mr. Clean and I have done. I suppose it had to be done, but there were about 10,000 other things that seemed like more fun and fulfilling ways to use naptime.
Probably that’s how Noah felt too as he measured out all those cubits. And he had to deal with all the gawking and pointing from the neighbors. (Although he also had the benefit of grown children and thus more than one minute of clear, consistent thought. I gotta believe he wasn’t getting frequent interruptions from Shem, Ham, and Japheth crying out for assistance in the bathroom.) But think how he felt when the animals actually showed up. Think of his amazement when that first drop of rain fell. God brought it all about, just like He said He would, and Noah knew all that measuring and hammering had not been in vain.
I wouldn’t say our family’s calling to move to a new neighborhood is as strong as Noah’s to save all man- and animalkind, but we are pretty sure God is calling us to build this ark so he can take us to new land. He was faithful to Noah, and He’s faithful to us. The one who calls us is faithful. First Thessalonians 5:24. It’s become my mantra. It’s got a nice rhythm to it when you’re scrubbing cupboards.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Ready for the Wringer
One of the passages I’ve always found interesting in the Bible is 2 Timothy 4:6 “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure.” This verse has been with me for a long time because it precedes the passage engraved on my dad’s headstone: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (verse 7).
As his days on earth were winding down, Paul chose to describe himself, his very life, as a drink offering. I’ve puzzled over that one. The Old Testament talks a lot about drink offerings, but like a lot of the Old Testament rituals, I’m a little fuzzy on the meaning.
A book I’m reading helped me focus on a different part of this verse—not so much on the “drink offering” part as the “poured out” part. The author was considering the all-American concept of “making one’s mark on the world.” Who doesn’t think about that from time to time? For some, it’s their highest goal. For a stay-at-home mom, it’s a yeah-right kind of goal. The only marks I see being made around here are those on my walls, thanks to a wanna-be ninja who forgot to take his shoes off.
Making a mark on the world is a man-made idea. God’s idea is for us to empty our mark into the world. To pour it out, like Paul did, so that nothing remains in the cup when the time for our departure comes.
When I picture my time at The Navigators, I see myself as a big, juicy sponge. I arrived flat and dry and spent 14 years soaking in all the love, goodness, spiritual maturity, and community I found there. The practical things I learned about God, the Bible, and the spiritual disciplines filled up my every pore. Though the leaving process did its best to drain the sponge, I am still nice and soggy from all I took with me.
We’re not supposed to live our lives in a state of permanent saturation. I’ve been sucking up all I can get, and God’s showing me that I’ve got to empty my sponge into those who are thirsty for its contents. Going through the wringer sounds a little scary, but I trust the One doing the wringing. I trust that He won’t wring me out and then cast me aside, but that He’ll continually fill me up again. My task is simply to empty my mark—my sponge—into the world, one dry and flattened person at a time.
I’ll admit it sounds a little daunting, especially when I’m already pretty pooped at the end of the day just from caring for my own family. But when this filling/emptying thing is done in His strength, not my own, I may find that I have more energy than ever before.
As his days on earth were winding down, Paul chose to describe himself, his very life, as a drink offering. I’ve puzzled over that one. The Old Testament talks a lot about drink offerings, but like a lot of the Old Testament rituals, I’m a little fuzzy on the meaning.
A book I’m reading helped me focus on a different part of this verse—not so much on the “drink offering” part as the “poured out” part. The author was considering the all-American concept of “making one’s mark on the world.” Who doesn’t think about that from time to time? For some, it’s their highest goal. For a stay-at-home mom, it’s a yeah-right kind of goal. The only marks I see being made around here are those on my walls, thanks to a wanna-be ninja who forgot to take his shoes off.
Making a mark on the world is a man-made idea. God’s idea is for us to empty our mark into the world. To pour it out, like Paul did, so that nothing remains in the cup when the time for our departure comes.
When I picture my time at The Navigators, I see myself as a big, juicy sponge. I arrived flat and dry and spent 14 years soaking in all the love, goodness, spiritual maturity, and community I found there. The practical things I learned about God, the Bible, and the spiritual disciplines filled up my every pore. Though the leaving process did its best to drain the sponge, I am still nice and soggy from all I took with me.
We’re not supposed to live our lives in a state of permanent saturation. I’ve been sucking up all I can get, and God’s showing me that I’ve got to empty my sponge into those who are thirsty for its contents. Going through the wringer sounds a little scary, but I trust the One doing the wringing. I trust that He won’t wring me out and then cast me aside, but that He’ll continually fill me up again. My task is simply to empty my mark—my sponge—into the world, one dry and flattened person at a time.
I’ll admit it sounds a little daunting, especially when I’m already pretty pooped at the end of the day just from caring for my own family. But when this filling/emptying thing is done in His strength, not my own, I may find that I have more energy than ever before.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
My Poor, Aching Memory
I got a lot of fun cards for my birthday this year, but the one from my mom made me cry. It wasn’t the factory-produced sappy sentiment that did it; it was the handwritten addition from my mom. Where the card showed a picture of a table set for a tea party, she wrote: “Taco Tico – Arkansas City, KS. You were 4. You looked like Brooka. Bought groceries and a taco lunch afterward. Just me and you. Outside if it was nice!”
I don’t remember Taco Tico or even liking tacos when I was a kid. I’ve never heard of Arkansas City, Kansas. (I imagine it was the “big city” where people from South Haven, where we lived at the time, went to shop at Alco.) I remember little about my early childhood, and what I do remember is not particularly pleasant (falling down the stairs, dogs getting hit by cars or bitten by snakes, my granddad dying, mean little girls, and dragging my stuffed animals out of the trash, when my dad wasn’t looking, every time we moved). Why is it that my young brain latched onto the negative memories but seemed to resist storing the good?
I hope this is unique to me. As a result of my mom’s card, I plan to ask her to write down more experiences like Taco Tico. Maybe that will help me remember. Or at least make me think I remember.
This has gotten me a bit discouraged about the fabulous childhood my own children are forgetting right before my eyes. I ran across Braden’s preschool class picture a few days ago, and when I showed it to him, he didn’t remember one kid. I had to point out Shaefer, Braden’s best buddy at the time. Granted, we haven’t seen these kids in five years, but he spent an entire year with them when he was four! And now it’s as if it never happened. Just like me and Taco Tico.
It makes me rethink the effort I put into birthday parties. Kind of depressing to think of the lengths I went to for Addison’s firestation birthday party three years ago that she now barely remembers. Yeah, she’ll have a few pages in her album and a huge banner that I splurged on from the Party Express catalog, but she’ll forget how passionately she wanted to be a “firegirl” and how thrilled she was to sit on that firetruck for the first time. And is it possible that Brooka’s all-encompassing love of tigers will be packed away some day just like Braden’s obsession with Blue’s Clues?
Of course I’m grateful for early memory loss when I let my babies “cry it out” in their cribs or when a little one waltzes into our bedroom at an inopportune time. But why can’t they automatically remember all the stuff I want them to?
Maybe it’s more about me remembering all the fun we’re having now so we can have wonderful times talking about it someday. So we can fall back on shared experiences during those awkward lulls in Thanksgiving conversation thirty years from now.
Time marches on. I can only hope my memory goes with it.
I don’t remember Taco Tico or even liking tacos when I was a kid. I’ve never heard of Arkansas City, Kansas. (I imagine it was the “big city” where people from South Haven, where we lived at the time, went to shop at Alco.) I remember little about my early childhood, and what I do remember is not particularly pleasant (falling down the stairs, dogs getting hit by cars or bitten by snakes, my granddad dying, mean little girls, and dragging my stuffed animals out of the trash, when my dad wasn’t looking, every time we moved). Why is it that my young brain latched onto the negative memories but seemed to resist storing the good?
I hope this is unique to me. As a result of my mom’s card, I plan to ask her to write down more experiences like Taco Tico. Maybe that will help me remember. Or at least make me think I remember.
This has gotten me a bit discouraged about the fabulous childhood my own children are forgetting right before my eyes. I ran across Braden’s preschool class picture a few days ago, and when I showed it to him, he didn’t remember one kid. I had to point out Shaefer, Braden’s best buddy at the time. Granted, we haven’t seen these kids in five years, but he spent an entire year with them when he was four! And now it’s as if it never happened. Just like me and Taco Tico.
It makes me rethink the effort I put into birthday parties. Kind of depressing to think of the lengths I went to for Addison’s firestation birthday party three years ago that she now barely remembers. Yeah, she’ll have a few pages in her album and a huge banner that I splurged on from the Party Express catalog, but she’ll forget how passionately she wanted to be a “firegirl” and how thrilled she was to sit on that firetruck for the first time. And is it possible that Brooka’s all-encompassing love of tigers will be packed away some day just like Braden’s obsession with Blue’s Clues?
Of course I’m grateful for early memory loss when I let my babies “cry it out” in their cribs or when a little one waltzes into our bedroom at an inopportune time. But why can’t they automatically remember all the stuff I want them to?
Maybe it’s more about me remembering all the fun we’re having now so we can have wonderful times talking about it someday. So we can fall back on shared experiences during those awkward lulls in Thanksgiving conversation thirty years from now.
Time marches on. I can only hope my memory goes with it.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Looking for a Miracle
Anybody noticed that it’s a pretty lousy time to try to sell a house? A dozen or so of our neighbors have figured it out. Their for-sale signs weather and their asking prices drop before our very eyes. And that was before all of today’s incomprehensible talk of credit confidence and corporate bailouts.
So whatcha gonna do when God calls you to sell your nice suburban house and relocate to one of the poorer neighborhoods in town? Argue with Him about the market slump? Lecture Him on U.S. economic policy? Squawk about His bad timing? Moses tried these tactics, and look how far they got him. He still ended up completing God’s assignment, and I bet as he held back the raging waters of the Red Sea, he felt a little foolish for all his weaseling and hem-hawing.
Our miracle doesn’t need to be anything as fancy as the Parting of the Sea. We just need a buyer dropped on our porch—in the most unstable economy of our lifetime—who says, “Yeah, don’t worry about the stained carpet or the overgrown foliage or the garage that I can’t even see because of all your wonderful crap. I’m good with that. I’ll take it just the way it is.” We need him (or her, or them; we’re not picky) to walk past all the nicer, cleaner houses for sale on our block and instead be magnetically drawn to our vintage 1970’s yellow rancher. He’ll have to avoid the kids’ boards, nails, and hammers on the front porch (we wonder how our milkman escapes injury on those dark delivery mornings). He’ll need to appreciate the stinkbug–sweaty-socks–aging-dog-with-intestinal-issues aroma wafting from the basement. He’ll need to find it charming that the only décor in the house is children’s artwork and remind himself that, luckily, the ratty furniture moves on to the next house. He’ll need to be a lover of wildlife—bears in the front yard, coyotes (loud ones) in the back, and deer chewing up anything with chlorophyll. He’ll have to have vision for a spacious dining room that currently houses every children’s toy made since 1999 and a busy mom’s cluttery desk. Mostly, he’ll need to have a lot of faith that God gave him the correct address. And then, he—or she or them—will get to be part of the miracle.
Any takers?!
Despite what my eyes and the newspaper tell me, I believe God will bring us a buyer. I believe it in some indescribable, way-down-deep, all-is-right-with-the-world sort of way. Or, as I read in a book recently, I know it in my knower. The hard work—getting a family of flawed, harried, self-absorbed, fearful people to change the course of their lives and follow Him wherever He leads—has already been done. Compared to flesh and blood, a little brick and mortar are a piece of cake.
So whatcha gonna do when God calls you to sell your nice suburban house and relocate to one of the poorer neighborhoods in town? Argue with Him about the market slump? Lecture Him on U.S. economic policy? Squawk about His bad timing? Moses tried these tactics, and look how far they got him. He still ended up completing God’s assignment, and I bet as he held back the raging waters of the Red Sea, he felt a little foolish for all his weaseling and hem-hawing.
Our miracle doesn’t need to be anything as fancy as the Parting of the Sea. We just need a buyer dropped on our porch—in the most unstable economy of our lifetime—who says, “Yeah, don’t worry about the stained carpet or the overgrown foliage or the garage that I can’t even see because of all your wonderful crap. I’m good with that. I’ll take it just the way it is.” We need him (or her, or them; we’re not picky) to walk past all the nicer, cleaner houses for sale on our block and instead be magnetically drawn to our vintage 1970’s yellow rancher. He’ll have to avoid the kids’ boards, nails, and hammers on the front porch (we wonder how our milkman escapes injury on those dark delivery mornings). He’ll need to appreciate the stinkbug–sweaty-socks–aging-dog-with-intestinal-issues aroma wafting from the basement. He’ll need to find it charming that the only décor in the house is children’s artwork and remind himself that, luckily, the ratty furniture moves on to the next house. He’ll need to be a lover of wildlife—bears in the front yard, coyotes (loud ones) in the back, and deer chewing up anything with chlorophyll. He’ll have to have vision for a spacious dining room that currently houses every children’s toy made since 1999 and a busy mom’s cluttery desk. Mostly, he’ll need to have a lot of faith that God gave him the correct address. And then, he—or she or them—will get to be part of the miracle.
Any takers?!
Despite what my eyes and the newspaper tell me, I believe God will bring us a buyer. I believe it in some indescribable, way-down-deep, all-is-right-with-the-world sort of way. Or, as I read in a book recently, I know it in my knower. The hard work—getting a family of flawed, harried, self-absorbed, fearful people to change the course of their lives and follow Him wherever He leads—has already been done. Compared to flesh and blood, a little brick and mortar are a piece of cake.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Some Cheery Thoughts on Death
I was sitting with a group of church women I don’t know well, talking about a lot of things, when the subject of death came up. One woman said, “I just don’t know how I’d respond if I found out I only had a few months to live. I don’t want to find out. I hope I just drop dead.”
I offered up to the group my hypothesis on facing death: that we become a more extreme version of who we already are. One who feels angry and hopeless will experience more extreme anger and hopelessness. One who feels grateful and hopeful will feel extra measures of those emotions. One who has spent a lifetime hungering for face-to-face fellowship with their Creator will be like a weary traveler pulling into a five-star hotel.
It puzzles me that so many followers of Christ are just as squeamish and fearful about death as those who don’t believe in an afterlife. If we really believe that heaven is our true home, why do we live in fear and dread of getting there? Is it the journey, which may be painful and humiliating, that we fear? Or the sadness of being separated from the people we love? It’s a lot of things, I’m sure, but it’s too bad those things take our eyes off the prize.
I remember that after my dad died, I would think of him all the time and try to imagine what he was doing. I knew even less about heaven then than I do now (which is not much), but I would get a little twinge of excitement just thinking about what it might be like. I still do. I’ve been trying for a couple years to get through Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven. The editor in me wants to dive into it with a red pen (I think it should be half the length it is), but I do love his proposition that heaven is filled with culture—music, literature, drama, sports, architecture—far beyond what we find on earth. The picture he paints is much more compelling than the harp-playing, cloud-floating image many of us carry in our heads.
Most of us will get a chance to test my hypothesis. The leading "killers," cancer and heart disease, don’t happen overnight. They allow their victims time to settle into the idea of death. Time to figure out who they’re going to be for the rest of their life. Unlike the lady I met last week, I hope I do get a chance to find out who I’ll be. I hope I’ll run the last leg of my life with genuine joy and anticipation. And I hope I get a lot of stretching time before that race begins!
I offered up to the group my hypothesis on facing death: that we become a more extreme version of who we already are. One who feels angry and hopeless will experience more extreme anger and hopelessness. One who feels grateful and hopeful will feel extra measures of those emotions. One who has spent a lifetime hungering for face-to-face fellowship with their Creator will be like a weary traveler pulling into a five-star hotel.
It puzzles me that so many followers of Christ are just as squeamish and fearful about death as those who don’t believe in an afterlife. If we really believe that heaven is our true home, why do we live in fear and dread of getting there? Is it the journey, which may be painful and humiliating, that we fear? Or the sadness of being separated from the people we love? It’s a lot of things, I’m sure, but it’s too bad those things take our eyes off the prize.
I remember that after my dad died, I would think of him all the time and try to imagine what he was doing. I knew even less about heaven then than I do now (which is not much), but I would get a little twinge of excitement just thinking about what it might be like. I still do. I’ve been trying for a couple years to get through Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven. The editor in me wants to dive into it with a red pen (I think it should be half the length it is), but I do love his proposition that heaven is filled with culture—music, literature, drama, sports, architecture—far beyond what we find on earth. The picture he paints is much more compelling than the harp-playing, cloud-floating image many of us carry in our heads.
Most of us will get a chance to test my hypothesis. The leading "killers," cancer and heart disease, don’t happen overnight. They allow their victims time to settle into the idea of death. Time to figure out who they’re going to be for the rest of their life. Unlike the lady I met last week, I hope I do get a chance to find out who I’ll be. I hope I’ll run the last leg of my life with genuine joy and anticipation. And I hope I get a lot of stretching time before that race begins!
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