Life is too short...

 

 

Life is too short... I can't put a period at the end of that sentence. Doing so makes it seem like I think we deserve more than we are given. In actuality, I know that we have been given much more than we deserve. What I can do is complete it with an infinitive and more.

 

Life is too short to hold a grudge.

Life is too short to hold back forgiveness.

Life is too short to argue about meaningless things.

Life is too short to waste it on social media.

Life is too short to argue about masks.

Today I had the privilege of saying goodbye to a dear and wonderful woman. It is not often we have that opportunity. I, personally, have only had one other such opportunity in my life with my paternal grandmother. There will be those of us who are able to be there at the end with our spouses and parents, but most of us will get a dreaded phone call or see an obituary that will tell us about the death of a friend or co-worker. To have the opportunity to know the time is near for some one you care about and be able to go and tell them how much you love them, admire them, and are grateful for their friendship is a special thing. It is not something I am taking lightly. These moments are precious for her family to have with her and that they let me take any of those moments away from them is to be prized. I don't know when she will be standing in glory before God, but the odds are not good that I will stand in her presence again before that happens. I'll be honest, a part of me didn't want to go. I didn't want my last memory of her to be while she was ill and not the vibrant and sweet woman I knew. But, I knew if I didn't take the opportunity to tell her of my love for her before she was gone, I would spend the rest of my life regretting it. I am glad I went.

I left thinking about the sentence, "Life is too short..." and what it means to stop after the word short. I don't like ending it there. As we drove home, while I was still wiping away tears and thinking about the brief conversations that were had in her home today, something struck me. Here we are currently living in a pandemic and we are spending so much time on things that are arguably not worth the time being spent on them. Over the last few months I have spend more than a few hours scrolling on Facebook, writing comments here and there to try to express my thoughts on some things. But the thing is that most of what is on Facebook right now is not worth the time we are giving it. I know some might disagree with me on this, but if we sit back and think about it, are all the hours we are spending defending the wearing of masks, or the hours being spent convincing the Facebook community that masks are an infringement on our rights really worth it? Are we going to change enough minds to make an impact? All that time is not being spent with the people in our homes. 

 

I also wondered, what if I had spent all that time that I spent talking about masks or rights and other things doing things that advanced the gospel? What if all the professing Christians stopped arguing about masks and politics and conspiracy theories and spent that time doing any kind of service? The impact that could be made seems like it could be huge. But it seems like we are too interested in arguing points that, in the scheme of eternity, don't really matter.  I am not saying there is not a place to stand up for your rights if you feel they are being violated. I am saying that long drawn out arguments on Facebook is not the way to defend your rights. The time spent on social media sharing memes that support your views and reading news from the only one news source you deem credible actually takes away time that you could be using to make a real difference if your in a place that you feel it is your calling to fight these injustices. Learning more about the whole picture of something and then organizing groups to write to government or other methods of making impact are being wasted in echo chambers and meme sharing. 

Today I have concluded that life is too short to waste arguing on social media. I am deleting Facebook from my phone. I will still go up there occasionally to reconnect (when I am at the computer) with people and share the fun events and life moments in my life. I am done arguing. I am done trying to convince anyone to at least hear a different point of view. Gone are the days of healthy debate. They have been replaced with hatred and vehemence. Some people have commended my attempts to get both sides to talk and learn from each other. But the thing is, I have found many are willing to share their side but they will not even entertain listening to the other side. As usual, there are exceptions to the rule, but they are few. Some people will not even read interesting historical pieces that I have shared because of which news outlet they came from. Others saw the title, assumed what the article was and and shared articles that were supposed to be for "the other side" when in actuality since the piece was historical, there should not have been another side. 

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a young adult. This eighteen year old man was able to walk me through seeing his points and upon sitting back and thinking through what he said, a portion of my view point was changed. He did not attack me. He did not throw out everything that I was stating because it was counter to what he believed. He passionately stated his side. He also was able to agree with me on some conditions I thought should be put in place no matter what side we were on. In the end, I changed my views some. I am sure not every conversation will end this way, but it certainly will not be able to if we continue to communicate the way we are on social media. I stand by my point from my last post. All the news networks on both sides of any topic are watching social media. We are fueling their headlines. The worse we are with our behavior the more convinced I am that they will put it in the news. Things that should never have been political have turned so political that it is hard to believe. Common sense is gone. Conspiracy theory is rampant. Intelligent individuals are believing information that I can't even understand how they believe it. They do their "research" yet they still fall for fake videos and outlandish theories. 

So, I have concluded that live is too short for all of this behavior. I am going to choose to read the books I seem to not have time for. I am going to increase my time with my family. I am going to go on walks and enjoy the time I have with them because life is short. Life is also precious and I feel like on some levels we are throwing it away by yelling at each other through the pixels of our screens. I am going to spend time doing things that can make a difference. I am going to pray for my dear friend and sister in Christ as she comes to the end of her journey in this realm. I will rejoice in knowing that I WILL get to hug her again when I join her.