When you strike a match to light thirty candles, you focus on the match, not the candles. Matches burn quickly and fingers feel pain.
When you’re on vacation for a week, Monday is relaxed, Thursday is purposeful, and Saturday is too late — you’re packing for home.
If you’re given six weeks to live, every day is purposeful Thursday. You have every reason to do hard things because if you don’t, they won’t get done. Facing fears, mending fences, loving well, affirming others, and risking rejection to speak truth into people’s lives. Leaving soon means living fearlessly, and leaving goodness in your wake.
When you think of it, we all have six weeks to live. Some of our “six weeks” will be longer than others, but we all face a final day.* We will each walk through a doorway and meet the One who created us.
I am not afraid to walk through that door. Our Creator already stepped through to our side with terms1 of peace, and I have accepted them. It’s not really about the door. It’s about what to do with our ‘six weeks’ prior to walking through it. What will matter most on the other side of the door? And what good things can I leave for those who follow? These are the things to focus on. While there is yet time.
* “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32).
1. John 3:16 / Romans 10:9 / Romans 5:1
