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You look at me now and see age. You see an old man. If you look closely and deeply, you may see yourself as you will be some day. Better look away quickly, it may be contagious.

As you look at me, you can’t see the dreams I once had. How I was going to save the world. I was going to make a difference. I had a future.

You can’t see the sacrifices I made secretly for my family, unspoken, hidden to prevent pain in those I love.

You look at me now and see the shadow of what I used to be. Oh, if you knew me then! Maybe you would have been proud to call me friend. Maybe you would have even given anything to be seen in my company, to learn from my experience, or to have a little of my glory rub off on you. But that was then.

I can’t keep up with you now. Truth is, I don’t want to. My years of keeping up are over. Now time itself is catching up with me.

You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but once I aroused passion in my lover’s heart. She used to eagerly wait for me to call on her. I knocked on her door with my stylish clothes just right, my breath minty clean, hair perfect (I had hair then), heart pounding in anticipation, and love mingled with lust in my own heart.

And she answered the door looking beautiful and maybe even innocently seductive. Will I be permitted to hold her hand, I wonder.

If you had time to sit and listen to an old man tearfully reminisce about old times…. Good times, bad times. Happy times, sad times. Birthdays and death days. Ah, but I drivel on. All those things are unimportant now. In the general scope of things, they are altogether insignificant and unimportant.

I am merely an echo from yesterday. A dying ember in the flame of life.

And yet—still—there is the me you can’t see. I’m still alive, in this shell. Believe it or not I still have dreams. I still have hope. Love is real and I feel it. I feel it!

I am not this body. I am not where I planned to be, not where my Momma and Daddy envisioned me to be, and not where I seem to be. I am not this body.

I am my mind. My thoughts reach all the way back as far as I can remember, all the way forward to a future I can’t be sure of. I have thoughts I can’t even express to you. Yes, there are fears, too.

More real than ever are my thoughts about the future. Yes, my friend, even now I have a future. Tomorrow there may be doctors and pills and procedures and proclamations. Tomorrow I will turn to look back, and when I turn around again I will see my last scene in this life.

Maybe my family will be around me. Maybe some loved ones. Or maybe I’ll be alone. Like now. Hopefully someone will care.

But I can tell you that after I close my eyes and open them again, I will be changed. Still alive, but changed.

And there is someone waiting for me. People I haven’t seen in years. My mother. Dad. Oh, the stories I have to tell them! And they will be happy to listen.

I don’t really know what it will look like, or what it will be like. My worn-out bible has some clues and hints, but so much about our heavenly home isn’t yet known.

But I am sure and confident it will be good. The Lord I’ve talked to all these years has been waiting for me, too.

These thoughts I told you about, they will be new then, in that new place. I think I will think about you now and again, while I’m waiting for you.

Thoughts of pride. And hope. And love. More than anything, love.

So as you look at me today, I am more than what you see. And some day, when you are like me, and you are looking out these same old eyes (maybe a little unfocused), you will remember our little conversation here, and you will call to mind these words (which will seem more meaningful then). And you’ll turn and look back. And when you turn again…

“…For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” James 4:14

“…When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” John 21:18

“Today, if you will hear His voice…”
Hebrews 3:15

“…Through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
Hebrews 2:14-15

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
John 11:25-26

Copyright © 2020 Larry Long

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