It Was Never About The Game

I remember seeing on television either in a commercial or a news item a series of pictures of the same man with his wife attending a professional football game over a number of years. Actually, it was more than just a picture. It was a series of photographs the shows them aging as the years passed and they sat in the same seats the same ball game. Clearly season ticket holders.  

In the first three or four photographs both the husband and the wife were smiling and pointing and happy and even appeared have aged very little. The next-to-last the photograph showed the couples together the man clearly was ill but still they were laughing and they were smiling as they watched their favorite teams play. Then in the last frame the man was not in the picture. The wife was in her usual seat watching her favorite team but is this photo the smile was not present. She seemed disinterested in watching the game or even being there in the first place.

I was talking with a friend who like myself had recently lost their spouse about the fact that so many things that I used to do did not appeal to me as they once did. I didn't seem to have any interest in eating, going anywhere or even doing anything. Remarkably, she said to me that she was experiencing the very same thing. There’s something strange about routines and that is they are not as routine as perhaps we might think. The places we go and the things that we do have a meaning beyond the place on the thing itself. Something else gives them meaning and purpose.

I remember Susan and I always talked about the fact that we had neither one ever been to the Grand Canyon. It was something we wanted to do and something we probably should have done but we didn’t. As I spoke with the lady mentioned above I related this failure to make that trip a reality. As I told her about it I said, “I believe that if Susan and I had taken that trip to the Grand Canyon I would have stood with her on the rim of the canyon and slowly taken in the scene unfolding  before us as I could.” Then I would have turned to her and said, “What an amazing and wonderful thing God has done in this arid land.” I think she might have replied, “Indeed, it is as awe inspiring as when we stood and viewed the three sisters in the Blue Mountains of Australia”

However, if I were to go there by myself today stand on the rim of that chasm in the earth as I surveyed it from one end to the other I would probably just say to myself, “It’s just another big hole in the ground.”

I remember hearing at more weddings than I’d like to admit the minister say to a young couple somewhere during the ceremony that now that they were husband and wife the joys of life would be doubled because there are two to share the joy. He would go on and say that because they were now husband and wife the burdens and sorrows of life would be more easily carried because there was now two to carry them. 

In the opening chapters of Genesis God says it is not good that the man should be alone. So he created woman to be alongside of man to make up what is lacking in the man. I think this goes to one of the reasons God created woman and brought her to man and declared that they are to become one flesh. God knew that that life is better when it is shared. 

Most of our lives are spent focused on the things that we do, the places that we go and the recreation in which we engage. However, while we are focused on things and places and activities something else is transpiring. And because this something else is happening quietly the places and things and activities have an importance beyond themselves.

With the passing of time we are going to realize that it wasn’t the games that we played and it wasn’t the things that we did go to the places where we went but it was the people with whom we did those things. At least I hope that's the case.

The truth is the day is coming for all of us as illustrated in that first paragraph about this old man and old woman that we will realize it was not the game but the people with whom we watched the game;  It wasn’t about the house we owned. It was the people who in it;  It wasn’t about the coffee we drank, but for whom you made and shared it;  It wasn’t all the work we put in at the office, but who was laboring along side of us; And, it wasn’t the dinners prepared for us, it was who brought you your plate.

It is important that we discover sooner rather than later that the time people give us is time in their life they will never get back. It is the people with whom we shared life that gave meaning to all those things we do. It is when the people with whom we shared life are no longer present that the things that we did together lose much of their value. They become memories to never be repeated. 

This became a reality to me when Susan, my wife a 54½ years took her Heavenly flight. It was then that I came face-to-face with a reality that much of what defined and gave meaning to my life gone. We had become what scripture calls one flesh and now a part of who I am tis no longer present with me. In a mysterious way when Susan left a great deal at what I did everyday for all those years no longer had significance or meaning.

You see it was not the game that we watched it was the fact that we watched it together and that’s true of every other activity that we shared. 

Because this is true I think it’s important that we learn early on in life that the most valuable thing we give to each other is our time. Time is the most valuable asset that we have. It’s the one possession that when we spend it we will never get it back. So we need to learn to value our time and the time others give to us. We must focus on people because relationships are the real value in life.

I have spent more than 60 years as a Baptist preacher/pastor and I have stood by with many a person as they lay dying and I yet to hear the first person say, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Nope . . . .its all about the people in our lives and especially that special someone who gives our lives meaning.