8-4-14 Vaporized

                                               
When I was a kid, 58 years old seemed like over a half-century away.  People that old were, well, old. Now that I am 58, I wonder where it all went.  One day I woke up old.  Prematurely so, if you factor in the Parkinson’s. It did pass as a vapor – my life was vaporized.

As I was thinking about this I wondered about the difference of some synonymous phenomenon. Fumes are made up of the invisible stinky stuff from stuff like paint.  Smoke is emitted by something burning and a vapor is something that curls up from a hot cup of coffee.  Of the three, the vapor dissipates the quickest.  Smoke can hang in the air for hours and stink can linger for quite some time.

I think of time as similar to a fuse.  The lit part travels along the fuse, the past is burnt and the future is before it.  The ignited portion is life.  “Now” doesn’t last long at all.  It is gone as quickly as it appears.  I can’t see how long my “fuse” is. I exist only in the “living” part.  It burns for a little while and then it ends.

The point is that we don’t know what tomorrow has in store.  God holds my tomorrow.  He keeps my life-force ignited.  My life is as fragile as a fuse and as transient as a vapor.  I can only move forward by trusting in Him.  The good news is that when this life is over, God will take me home to heaven.

“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” James 4:14.

© copyright Kevin T Boekhoff