The Thin Thread of Life

Recently I heard from someone close that her oldest son, a married man with three teenage kids, had been suddenly diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. He’s in his early 40’s. They give him a couple of months. BOOM—just like that, no warning, no early symptoms!

A few days ago a friend shared how she’d recently been driving down a rural road and conditions were a wee bit slippery but nothing crazy. But suddenly the car in front of her lost traction and slid into the path of an oncoming vehicle. The impact killed the occupants of both cars, who all happened to be roughly my age. My friend managed to avoid being part of the accident—just. She was the only witness. All in the blink of an eye.

Later today I’m headed to the funeral of a friend’s mom. She was older, but not way out there—not by today’s standards. Recently her health had been failing. And last weekend she passed away.

This all made me aware, again, that it doesn’t matter if we’re young, or just think we’re young(er), but oh man, oh man, life she hangs on by an awfully thin thread. We don’t know— we just DON’T know when our thread will snap.

And, yeah, I know—we can’t live every day with a dark fear of that. But being aware of the gift of today is worth treasuring and it's worth saying “Thanks” every day we wake up alive. Every day. As well as being gratefully aware that standing in Eternity, ready to receive us, is our Loving Saviour Jesus.

There’s also this piece. Earlier today I was blessed to be able to share a significant spiritual conversation with someone. This individual is spiritually aware and sensitive but is not in a living relationship with Jesus. But the conversation we started ain’t done. More will happen. And she’s now on my prayer list. "Holy Spirit, in your sovereign grace please allow me more opportunities to build a bridge between her and Jesus.” Can’t wait to see the next part. Especially knowing that one day her thread of life will snap, too. And what an amazing thing it would be to know that our conversations would be part of her coming to saving faith.

Do you have someone on your prayer list like that? If not, may I encourage you to ask the Lord to point you towards someone for whom you can begin praying for such opportunities.