A Million Years from Now

It is not the years of your life, but the life in your years that matters. 

The story of Carrie C. White illustrates this. Carrie was a Florida resident who died in 1991 at the ripe old age of 116. Just think of all you could do with a life span of 116 years. Looking further into her story reveals that she was a resident of a Palatka, Florida nursing home at the time of her death. At 116 it is not surprising that she lived in a nursing home. The sad thing is that she entered the nursing home 82 years before she died! I don’t think I will mind living in a nursing home from ages 110 to 116, but I do not want to live in a nursing home for the last 82 years of my life.

Once a group of young people was discussing old age when the age of 95 came up. One of them asked, “Who in the world would want to live to 95?” Someone else answered, “Well, I guess anyone who is 94.” After thinking about Carrie White, we can’t help but add, “Yes, but only if it really is living.” Just breathing is not living. Living means doing something with life.

A first-grade teacher was going through the grief of losing her mother. Children pick up on things and one of the students noticed that the teacher was not doing well. She came up to the teacher and asked what was wrong. When the teacher shared the loss with the child, the little girl answered, “Well, I hope you live until you die.” Maybe the little girl did not fully understand it, but she said something profound. Too many people do not live until they die.

10,000 years from now, we will all be living somewhere. 100,000 years from now all of this will be a distant memory for us, but we will not be just a memory. A million years from now. We will all be alive. Nothing should happen here to make us lose the will to live the plan that God has for us.

It is not the number of years you live while here that matter. It is the kind of life you live. A million years from now the life you live then will be a reflection of the life you live now. Life here is just a preparation for the life that is to come.

Lonnie Davis