As I asked God what He would have me to share I thought for a couple days of any reoccurring themes that I had been seeing or hearing. And one thing in particular occurred to me first.
Now, this is going to sound maybe a little strange. Haha, I feel like I’m constantly prefacing what I’m about to say with a warning.
But lately I’ve been hearing this dramatic intro music to a famous soap opera. And then the deep man’s voice says, “…These Are The Days of Our Lives.”
Have you ever watched this soap opera? I must have seen a small piece of an episode as a child while someone was babysitting me. Because neither my mom nor I ever watched any of these. It seems like I’ve always only seen the intros, haha. Maybe that was my cue as a child to change the channel, I don’t know. I honestly can’t remember. But For some reason, this intro music and tagline has been popping up into my head at the strangest times.
A couple nights ago I was getting off the interstate to go home and suddenly I heard the intro music in my head again. I even said the tagline out loud , “These Are The Days of Our Lives.” Which immediately made me laugh out loud and wonder why I just said it out loud with no one but the baby in the back seat to hear me.
I tried to go look up the soap opera Wikipedia page to see if anything really popped out to me to instruct me on what that could mean to me. But alas, I think I’ll have to go with the feeling I got when I would hear that iconic intro music and a scripture that I’ve been meditating on.
I came across this scripture a couple weeks ago and it’s been sitting there in the back of my mind. Kind of haunting me. “We spend our years as a tale that is told.” Psalm 90:9b.
It’s the 2nd part of the verse, but it’s what’s been echoing in my mind and heart.
A week or 2 ago I was mowing a lawn with my son and I heard the dramatic intro music start playing as I put the mower away. I’m pretty sure I said the corresponding words too, and laughed at it. “These Are The Days of Our Lives”. My 17 year old son took his headphones off and raised his eyebrows as I explained that I’ve had that stuck in my head lately. He’s a sweet guy, he seems to understand my weirdness in a very refreshing non judging way.
Mowing makes me nostalgic, since that’s what my Dad did for a living. And when I’m out mowing with my son I think about how my brothers and I would go and mow with my Dad. It tends to make me think about how hard my Dad worked all the time for so many years, only every once in a while taking a break. And then he was just gone suddenly. There was no retirement, no slowing down. The day before he died he and my brothers did 12 lawns because they were trying to catch up on all the work that had piled up while he had spent 10 days in the hospital.
The work never stopped. And it never will. There will always be work to do. My struggle seems to always be, putting my work and priorities in the right places. I learned how to be a hard worker from my parents. But I also have a tendency to be a work a holic. Because there’s just so much to do. But, what if…”These are the days of our lives…?” What if these small moments are it?
When my Dad retired to Heaven, I decided to make a plan for my retirement too. So I could try to not let it catch me unprepared for the most part. I wanted to leave my children with some kind of inheritance as far as I could.
Since I only recently started working for an online company from home I don’t have much in the way of money to give them. But I do plan on writing a book for each of them. I want to start with children’s books. I want them to have something to read to their children and their children’s children. The idea has been gnawing at me for several years.
It started when I was walking past the children’s book aisle in Walmart one day. I felt God say, “What would you say to them? Are you ok with this selection here? Don’t you think you could give them something with more substance? What do you want your children to be reading to your grandchildren before bed?”
And now every single time I walk by that aisle I see a reminder of it.
I also make music which God led me to start publishing through Distrokid.com . When I feel unqualified I remember that God told me over 12 years ago to “step on out my child. Don’t be afraid.” I just recently started making a little money every month from it, about $15 to $30.
My plan there is to sing through and publish all the Psalms and to dedicate an album to each of my children. There are 150 Psalms, and I can publish 30 Psalms to each album. So I’ll have 5 albums that I found I can pay extra and have them stay up for streaming perpetually on all the music streaming platforms. Even after I’m…retired.
I wish I had recorded my Dad singing and playing the guitar. I had meant to when I would visit my parents. But you know how things go- you get busy. Now, just to hear his voice is precious. I have a few phone recordings where he called to say “Happy Birthday” and “Happy Mother’s Day”. Sometimes I listen to them just because.
So my plan is to leave lots of recordings for my children, God willing. 2 days ago I finished my last recording of the 150 Psalms. Now I just have to organize them, edit them and publish them. Which is still quite a bit of work. But I’m moving forward and I have 2 albums of the first 30 Psalms already published.
All this to say, if God has put writing a book on your heart. Write it now. Start now, you can self publish so easily now a days. Don’t be a perfectionist, start where you are. “These are the days of our lives.”
If God has been nudging you to start something, build a house, plant a garden, create a curriculum, get in shape, start training for a marathon…”These are the days of our lives.” Our lives are right now. Not at some future point in time. Just start now. “Do not despise the day of small beginnings, For God delights to see the work begin.” Zechariah. 4:10
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