Heavenly pages - blank or full?

I’m not a huge sports fan, but my husband is. So, while I sit at my laptop reading email or writing, hubby is usually watching some sports event on television. I like to keep an eye on the progress of the Colorado teams: The Broncos, The Rockies, The Avalanche, The Nuggets.

So, when the noon news came out today, it instantly caught my attention when they announced the sudden and unexpected death of Kei McGregor. I don’t know much about him, accept that he was the President of the Rockies organization, he was well known and loved in the sports community in Colorado, at least, he died much too young at age 48, and he left a family behind.

Our town has had its share of losses over these past few weeks as well. A 16 yr old youth who adored his dog went four-wheeling down by the canal one day. When he didn’t return home, family and emergency services went looking for him. They found his body hours later. Apparently, his dog had fallen into the canal and his owner tried to rescue him. They both drowned. Another young man who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor several months ago died a couple of weeks ago at the age of 20. Last week, we lost a man in our community who had served as a pastor and later worked in our school system. He was 62, not much older than I.

All of these losses of life make me take a second look at my own. Why do I deserve more time on this earth when people who seem to accomplish so much more than I have are taken from it? I know it’s all a part of God’s plan, but I suppose it bothers me because it makes me accountable for my time. Every moment wasted is one that could and should be used in some constructive manner.

I remember reading a poem once entitled Eternal Ink by Craig F Pitts. It is a rather long work that depicts a visit to heaven. Once, there the visitor finds an angel writing constantly in a book, but most of the words disappear as soon as they are written. The message of the poem is that only the things we do that have eternal meaning will remain in our heavenly record. The older I get, the more I ask myself, “How many of the pages in my heavenly book are filled with eternal ink – and how many are blank?”

Thanks for reading my blog.