Today we drove north from New York City to the west of Boston. It was one of the top ten most beautiful trips I have ever made. Someone had splashed the landscape with a trillion cans of orange, red, yellow and bronze paint. When the sun shone on walls of color the atmosphere itself glowed. At one point as we neared a tunnel we were swallowed by color not only on both sides but also on the mountain in front of us.
As our leaves are rapidly coming to their end I wondered why is it as we near our end that we could not go out in a blaze of glory. Instead we grow pale. Our hair, if we have any left, goes mousey gray. I know only two people with really white hair. Our skin wrinkles. It is difficult to stand up straight. We shuffle. Do you remember the song, “Old soldiers never die. They just fade away.”? I’m fading. I find myself wishing I were a leaf.
I found myself smiling this morning at a lady who must have spent a fortune on a complete reconstruction of her face but she forgot to do her hands. It looked strange to see a sixty face with twenty hair sporting a pair of eighty-five hands.
Fortunately, unlike the leaves which end in glory, we will begin again in glory and retain it. When we are a thousand with a thirty face and thirty hands (I’m guessing thirty is prime.) we have no need of the plastic man. We will never need the plastic man because we will always have Jesus, the resurrection and the life and the sustainer of life evermore. John 3:16 promises, “shall have everlasting life.” How grand!
Spring Of Life