Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”

Robert Brault

This past week we marked the first day of fall. This morning the temperatures outside announced its coming. It’s a signal to me that it’s time to get the Christmas music out and begin to play it in the car and throughout the house.

My Bride of forty-five years loves it, of course, but believes that my wanting to start playing it so early in the year is a product of a missing gene in my DNA makeup.

I would probably have the music out during the year—and there have been a few times that I have—where I found it to be encouraging, uplifting and necessary.

I have had those moments throughout the years when in dealing with whatever it was going on in my life, it helped to be reminded of that time of year again, that time in history, and of that special thing which God did for me—and for you—in that moment in Bethlehem, so long ago.

And so, I did what I do when I begin to feel fall in the air, and as I was gathering together the Christmas music, my eyes fell upon an album by Reba McIntyre entitled “Merry Christmas to You”, which brought to mind her haunting song of a few years ago “If I Had Only Known.”

You may remember some of the words to that song:

If I had only known it was the last walk in the rain,

I’d keep you out for hours in the storm,

I would hold your hand like a life-line to my heart;

Underneath the thunder we’d be warm.

If I had only known it would be our last walk in the rain.”

Other songs have been penned and sung throughout the years about the lesson the song seeks to share with us. Books have been written and shared, from generation to generation, to try to remind us before it’s too late in our lives and before we miss the special sacred moments never to be shared again.

The simple lesson from the words of that song have been shared, heard and at least for a short time in most all of our lives—followed. And then the busyness of life sets back in and we are usually off to the races again in search of something we believe we should be after. Something that is usually not at all important, but something that society would try to convince us is to be sought after as better and more important.

And while we conform to the patterns of society, those moments of time with the most precious of people—whom we often find out too late matter the most—slip through our fingers and our lives.

We don’t really mean to let it happen, do we? We will do it tomorrow for sure—spend time with them. “Really”, we proclaim, and promise ourselves and them—we will do it—tomorrow. But for now we have to deal with all the urgent stuff before us in the seemingly never-ending scramble of things. Things like careers to advance, games and trophies to be won, resumes to improve, status to seek, money to be made, and objects and stuff to acquire. For we have been assured by the messages of the world all around us, that those are all the really big and important things. Aren’t they? Or are they?

If I had only known it was the last night by your side,

I’d pray a miracle would stop the dawn…

If I had only known, if I had only known…

Oh, the love I would have shown…If I had only known.”

But what if that really was our last walk in the rain? What if it really was the last night by the side of a loved one? The last time you stood with a long-time friend? The last time you held your child and wiped a tear from their eyes? What if tomorrow never came? What if when we said goodbye to our family that one final morning as we headed out on a business or a recruiting trip, to the office or school—it turned out to be our last goodbye? The last moment we would see their face or touch their hands in this world?

If we allow it to continue, won’t the urgent scramble of life always find another important thing to strive for, while all the most important and truly sacred things and moments of our lives will be missed and lost forever?

The first day of fall. We can feel it in the air.

The first day of the rest of our lives.

Why not commit today, and every day hereafter, to make every day count with those important people and moments in your life. Those truly big things—just in case there is no tomorrow? Just in case this is your last night by their side. Just in case this is your last walk in the rain.

Just in case. Because one day there won’t be another day.

In His Name—Scott

Copyright 2012. Scott L. Whitaker. All rights reserved.