LIFE IS BUT A VAPOR

Why do we always think we have lots of time and think we can always “do it tomorrow” or that things you see on the evening news only happen to other people? Why? We think that way because we are human beings. I heard my Pastor’s wife tell me recently how God created man to live forever (until Adam and Eve messed things up) so our minds do not comprehend death.
My stomach was tied in knots and I was feeling sick to my stomach I was having trouble eating. I sat there watching the steam rise from my food. It would rise and disappear in seconds. God’s word tells us in James 4:14 “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.“ yet still we think we have forever. We find ourselves planning next year’s vacation or the Holidays that are still months away never stopping to think we may not make it until then.
February 14, 2008, Valentine’s Day will be a day I will never forget. My husband the romantic was in the hospital. He always wanted me to stay with him at night when he was in the hospital, so I would sleep on a pull out bed next to him. That morning, we both woke up as usual, I got dressed for work, leaned over his hospital bed and kissed him and told him how much I loved him and that I would see him after work, he told me that he loved me and to please be careful driving to work. In my mind I was planning a special Valentine’s Evening there at the hospital for the two of us. He loved Holidays so this one I said would be no different, the place might be different, but we would spend our Valentine’s Day together. I didn’t know until later that he had talked to our daughter that morning after I left upset because he was in the hospital and couldn’t do something for me on Valentine’s Day, and he asked her to do something for him.
At lunch time that day I called to check on him and found out that he had accidentally aspirated the fluids in his esophagus from his stomach into his lungs, went into respiratory arrest and was rushed to ICU and put on a ventilator. Those last few words still ring through my mind because they were the last words we ever spoke to each other.
If you were never able to converse and speak to those you love the most again, what would the last words be that you spoke to them? Would they be words spoken in anger, hatred and bitterness or ones filled with love and happiness?
We never know if this moment or this breath may be our last. Believe me when I tell you that you never know just how much you miss someone until they are gone. All of us have relatives that we just can’t seem to get along with, or have hurt us in some way or perhaps are just ornery. Don’t let life slip through your fingers and miss the opportunity to mend your relationship fences with those that you love, your estranged family members and friends because you may never have another chance. And believe it or not, You Will Care if you wait too long.