It is good to step aside from normal routine and spend quality time with family. We are so busy and often scattered apart while our jobs and school or other activities keep us from having quality, healing and relaxing times together. In life, time passes fast and separations grow more frequent. Modern life is busy and tends to lead family members away from close ties and frequent gatherings. Regrettably, in today’s gathering for lunch and fellowship, our two grandchildren, Alex and Kelley, were away working and in college.
As a child growing up on a farm, folks with character and good morals helped shape my life. We were farmers and frequently visited with grandparents and cousins. Our family was poor and my dad, Neal Justus, farmed plus drove a school bus and worked part time in a feed store. Somehow, he helped me get in college, which changed the direction of my life. From college, a career in the Air Force led me to a diverse and far ranging life for many years.
Papa Jesse Justus, a wise old Christian farmer, in his 90’s said to me on a rare visit I made back home while in the USAF, that he was getting close to 100 but life seemed to have passed fast. Together we agreed life had changed. Also, every day is precious and one should live that day as if the last day. Our time to bear the standard on the path of life is brief and distractions occur so often. Quality time spent with family members and friends is so brief in modern times. Make each day count!
Recently I began to pine over the sad fact that most of our long-time friends and relatives are now gone. Folks I knew before entering the Air Force and those friends made in the service have also passed away. I seldom find a person with similar backgrounds to my life. As time passed trusted friends and older relatives that helped shape my life died. It is the way of life and growing older requires a person to also cope with both physical conditions due to aging and loss of ability to do all one desires.
We spent time recently with our daughter Amy and her husband, Keith Pointer. We enjoyed a good meal and much discussions. We shared a period of peace and pleasure in our often-troubled world. Sadly, good and evil war with each other, both within us and in the world at large. From childhood I learned by going to church and reading the Bible that this warfare has waged since Adam and Eve. A great help in coping with both advancing age and problems in the world is to have faith in God and build strong ties between parents and children, and friends of like mind and feelings. Pray for peace and harmony and leaders possessing the right principles and love for freedom.
