Where Does Time Go?

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” John W. Whitehead

I am drawn to single sentences that can communicate a ton of truth that could be the reminder I need for choices and decisions in life. This single sentence helps a parent, uncle, aunt, grandparent, AWANA youth worker, Sunday School teacher, and other child-focused relationships come into focus.

Cleaning Out My Home Office Stacks

I am a person of stacks. The shelves fill up. The closets are full. Therefore, my home office starts to have growing stacks of books and boxes on the floor. Try as I might, each cleanup only lasts a short time. Why does this happen? It happens because I’m given or buy more books, I have things I want to take care of “someday,” or I just don’t want to deal with the item or throw it away.

This morning I did a partial cleanup of my floor stacks and came upon this picture. If I had to guess, I would say it was taken in 2007 or perhaps 2008. What I realized when I saw the picture are two things. One is that the only grandchildren in the picture are Mia (on the left) and Violet (on the right.) Since that time we have been blessed with four more grandchildren: Noelle, Charlie, Henry, and George.

The second thing that struck me is that both of these two granddaughters are now in college. This is a tribute to the goodness of God and the great job their parents did in teaching them about the how to live life and how to make good decisions.

So, when I see this picture, I am seeing a living messages I send to a time I will not see. I will be forgotten, and someday they will too. But the message can live on.

The question should be for today and the balance of my life, “What message am I sending?”

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.” John W. Whitehead

It depends on what you communicate today.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deuteronomy 6:4-9

About John W. Whitehead

The Rutherford Institute is a conservative Christian public interest law firm dedicated to the defense of civil liberties, human rights, and religious liberties. Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the non-profit organization’s motto is “its our job to make the government play by the rules of the Constitution.” The organization was founded in 1982 by John W. Whitehead, who continued to be its president as of 2015.