So much of what we spend our time on won’t last when we are gone.
On a recent visit to my parents’ house, we were treated to some mild winter weather. We had a cold snap the week before, followed by rain, so when the sun came out on Saturday and the temperature hit sixty degrees, we grabbed the pups and headed out for a long walk. We started out on familiar trails left by loggers from the past and then cut back by my daddy and brother, but eventually we found ourselves exploring territory that hasn’t been cut back in a while.
We ended up in a beautiful, flat area, with tall, majestic oak trees. There were no logging trails or trails from my parents’ ATV. It seemed completely untouched by humanity, but as we walked a little further, my hubby called back to tell us to watch out for the barbed wire. Sure enough, there were two strands of very old barbed wire that two oak trees had grown around.
I was fascinated. The trees were completely unaffected by the wire and I wondered how old they were. My parents nor grandparents, ever had livestock in that area, so it’s been untouched for at least sixty years, if not longer. But, clearly at some point, someone had used that flat area to keep some type of livestock. Someone had used their hands and had likely spent hours in sweat equity building a fence and maintaining some sort of pasture for grazing.
I wondered what animals lived there and how long the former owners farmed there. Was farming their livelihood? Did they constantly worry about their fence and what tomorrow would bring with the weather or what predators lurked nearby? Was it worth it to them? In the end, were they at peace with their life choices and how they spent their time? What happened to them and their farm?
Because, somewhere between 60 and 100 years later, it was almost as if that fence was never even there. Nature reclaimed what was hers and erased someone’s hard work.
That barbed wire remnant really got me to thinking about what we focus on during our short time here and what really matters. We tend to find ourselves focusing on things like our jobs and financial issues or these days, politics and a pandemic. While these things may be serious matters at the moment, these are not eternal matters.
According to the CDC, the average lifespan for Americans is 78.7 years. How much of our time is spent worrying about or working on things that won’t matter in ten or twenty years, much less 100?
We live in a physical world, so we have to spend some of our time working on physical things, but perhaps the answer is to focus more of our time on matters that will last long after we are gone like faith, hope and love. We can share those with people in our lives and send waves that can spread across generations.
Some old barbed wire reminded me to be intentional about how I spend my time. Perhaps you needed reminding too.
Have an awesome day!
Wendy 🙂