7 A final word

There is a line in one of our hymns that says, "Time flies on wings of lightning" (Hymns, no. 226). How true that is!

Elsewhere in this issue of the newsletter we report that 50 years ago this month Kay flew off to Peru to begin his missionary service. In the ensuing half century, he served in Peru for two and a half years, came home and married Claudia Peterson, finished his education, reared a large family, worked at his career, served faithfully in the Church, lost his eternal companion to cancer, remarried, and with his new companion, Karen, served another mission in Peru. Kind of like coming full circle. And he has a large posterity that calls his name blessed.

This is not intended as an obituary or a eulogy. We are simply observing that in the blink of an eye the years roll by and a half a century is gone.

I feel as young as ever, and I can remember the events that Dorothy recorded in her diary entries those 50 years ago. Kind of sobering. Yes, the poet was right when he penned these words:

Time flies on wings of lightning;
We cannot call it back.
It comes, then passes forward
Along its onward track.
And if we are not mindful,
The chance will fade away,
For life is quick in passing.
'Tis as a single day ("Improve the Shining Moments," Robert B. Baird [1855-1916]).

Life is quick in passing. In the eternal scheme of things, it's hardly a blip on the radar screen, sandwiched as it is between the eternities of our life before we came here and the eternities that will follow after we leave. But, in the nature of things, the way this earth life was designed and set up, what an everlastingly important blip it is!

I like the analogy of a prism. White light can be sent through a prism and come out the other side reflected in a rainbow of colors. Earth life is our prism. Our eternal spirits come pure from heaven, and through the trials and tests and temptations of mortality, we get to show what our true colors are. We get to show what our hearts really desire. The few or many years we are privileged to spend here, and how we make use of the time and opportunities and gifts we are given, will set the trajectory of what we will be and do for all the rest of eternity. Again, kind of sobering.

So, let us use our days wisely. And, as this same hymn also says, let us:

Improve the shining moments;
Don't let them pass you by.
Work while the sun is radiant;
Work, for the night draws nigh.