Complete

James – 86 years old
Virginia – 78 years old
Ruth – 71 years old
John – 44 years old
George – 62 years old
Mary – 99 years old

What do all these have in common? Last year, to each one, we said goodbye. We may not have known them personally but there they are, names engraved on headstones in the cemetery just around the corner. They passed from this life onto the next. Now their earthly existence, complete.

Think about that … complete.

And on my morning run, as I looked at those headstones, what made me stop to see …  I wondered … I wondered if they had the chance to live enough …

I wondered if they had the chance to laugh enough

.. to play enough

.. to pray enough

.. to sing enough

I wondered if they would describe their life as “complete”.

And then I wondered – how long it will be before I find myself complete?

.. will I have lived enough?

.. will I have laughed enough?

.. will I have prayed and sung and played enough?

And from time to time it’s good for all of us to examine, to question .. “am I doing those things that matter most, and forsaking those things that matter least?”