We are all more than a fragment of time in our lives.”
I pulled this sentence from an article in the Washington Post. The author had followed three elderly people for some time to write a story about their relationships. When the article was finished, however, she remained in touch, because they were more than her story; they had become her friends.
“We are all more than a fragment of time in our lives.”
I am thinking about the people, myself included, who are tempted to define themselves by a single thing in their lives, be it education, illness, divorce, tragedy or even triumph. Good or bad, what is happening in this moment is but a single frame from that movie still in production: your life.
All we see of someone at any moment is a snapshot of their life, there in riches or poverty, in joy or despair. Snapshots don’t show the million decisions that led to that moment. Richard Bach
And snapshots don’t show the trajectory of our lives.
As Paul says,
That is why we never give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day. We have small troubles for a while now, but these troubles are helping us gain an eternal glory. That eternal glory is much greater than our troubles. So we think about what we cannot see, not what we see. What we see lasts only a short time, and what we cannot see will last forever.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
It is easy to miss the good; bad is so loud and insistent. But the bad moments mustn’t be allowed to overwhelm the good ones. Celebrate those good moments; they hold more truth about who you are than the bad ones do.
Because by God’s grace, “We are all more than a fragment of time in our lives.”