Guest Column - Carrel Moore

December 1, 2021

A man named Solomon, who was thought to be the wisest man of his time took great care in reviewing his long life. Many of us are familiar with the passage in Ecclesiastes that starts with “There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die..."

The Covid-19 epidemic has been all consuming of our attention. Concerns for our own health and non-stop news coverage may well be affecting our sense of wellbeing and outlook for the future. It is easy to see how people can become depressed and find it a little more difficult to find things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

Recently I had an occasion to clean out an old cedar chest and look through hundreds of family photos taken over the last 70 plus years. It gave me pause to review the seasons of my life and be truly thankful for the grace that I have been given to be part of the miraculous cycle of life on earth. A true miracle does not have to be a rare spectacular or newsworthy event. People fall in love and form all kinds of relationships. We really don’t understand how these relationship forms or why many last a lifetime. Millions of conceptions, births and deaths happen every day that are beyond our ability to truly understand why; we all are part of the miracle of life on earth.

In the cycle of our life, we move from being dependent on our parents to seeking independence. We then seek out relationships to form the family bonds that we struggled to be free from. Education, friendships, love, marriage or commitment, children, struggles, victories, defeats, difficulties, health problems, hard work and personal loss are part of the mix. We can only live our life each day and enjoy what the creator and creation have provided for us. Solomon said it like this:" I know that there is nothing better for man (kind) than to be happy and do good work while they live."

It is so easy to be caught up in the real day to day problems in our lives that we do not really appreciate what we have now and have had all throughout our life. I find it comforting to remember the seasons of my life as a part of the life I am living now. We should not live in the past but try to understand what part these seasons of life have played in equipping for the life are living today. We should truly be thankful for the part we play in the miracle of life.

Author: Carrel Moore
Windmill