Sand

I didn't fully understand the concept of sand measuring time, the hour glass, until I went to Africa and spent a night in the Sahara Desert. I walked barefoot across the dunes under a beautiful African night sky and then sat down and let the soft, fine-grained sand slip through my fingers. A day disappeared and my thoughts were turned toward what had passed in my life—each moment a gift—sometimes recognized as such and other times seemingly wasted. That night, with my hands in the sand, it started to make sense: you can't hold sand; the tighter you grasp it, the quicker it slips through your fingers—just like life. God is the Giver of Life and like sand, he passes life through his hands and into ours. What we do with it is our decision but one day, like sand running out in an hour glass, whether haltingly or with conclusion, it stops.

In my mind I have a picture of God in heaven preparing life for each human conceived. I see him gathering all the experiences that will make up a person's life—learning to count, scoring in basketball, breaking a wrist, breaking a heart, sleeping under the stars, laughing so hard it hurts, vacationing in Tahiti, baking cookies for the grandchildren, sending a hand written letter—and letting them trickle through his fingers into theirs.

Life is a gift—a variety of events, interactions, thoughts and emotions. When we, the Livers of Life, are passed the Giver's gifts each is different; we are scorched by trials like sand at noonday scorches bare feet: someone gets fired, a house burns down, a marriage fails, a loved one passes on. Sometimes we get tired of living, forgetting that one of the implications of receiving a gift is to be thankful for it and so each day falls into our laps like sand thick with moisture falling in unpleasant clumps. We spend each day in a tiresome routine: wake up, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch television, go to sleep, repeat. However, there are those moments when we get it right; we hold our breath and time stands still and we get lost in beauty: a man gets down on one knee in front of the woman he loves, a father looks at his son and says, “I'm proud of you!”, a workaholic takes a week of vacation so she can go skiing in the mountains. 

Yes, to us our experiences are very different in substance but perhaps God sees them as though they are of the same consistency—like the Saharan sands all warm and soft in my hands that night. All life moments have value, each with a memory to savour, a lesson to ponder. It's always a matter of perspective—there is real beauty in pain and hardship. We must look beyond what we feel in the moment and see a greater concept; God gives all experiences as a gift letting us live one extreme so we understand it's opposite. When we know sorrow we can understand joy; when we become overwhelmed we discover what true rest is and when we lose ourselves in the mundane we are in a most excellent place to be found. 

I want my life to mean something. I want to know that when Life stops being passed through my fingers I did something worthwhile, something worth remembering. I want to be able to look God in the eye and tell him without shame that I lived every moment he gave me. How can one live a meaningful life? Many have pondered this question, I'm sure, but few have come up with an answer. I don't think it's in having those moments, beautiful as they are, when we get it right. I don't want to live only in those “mountain-top” experiences, I want to feel the earth's mass under my feet as I climb up to the summit...and I want to breathe in deeply when I move on from the heights and descend to the valleys. We can't stay up on our mountains! We can't cling to sand, it only fades that much faster!  We must take everything in. We are deceived if we believe life is only in the big moments; we wouldn't be on the mountains then, we'd be in the plains where everything is level, the same. Life in it's very nature is dynamic! I'm convinced there is a purpose for every time, every season of life no matter how painful or mundane or beautiful it might seem. But I can't perceive the meaning of why I'm in the valley from the perspective of the peaks. I must lower my eyes so they focus not on my increasing distance from the crest but on what's around me. Is the grass still green under my muddy shoes? Does the sun still shine even though the trees block out its light? Can I make today worth remembering in thirty years?

Friends, let's take a look around and decide to live today.