The Measure of my Days
Last week, seventy students received graduation certificates from the Valley Baptist Missions Education Center in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. As their Professor, I would have ordinarily been the one to hand them their certificate, then pose for their picture with me. However, due to a covid-like sinusitis, I was stuck at home, lest I give them more than a certificate. The following Sunday, I was to lead a prayer emphasis at a church in Kentucky, but the same medical diagnosis caused the pastor and I to opt for a re-scheduling. Not sure why, but one of the things I dislike the most about ministry is having to cancel a commitment. Until my recent, Senior-adult years, I almost never did such a thing. A commitment made was a commitment kept. However, the years take their toll on a body, and lately my pharmacist and I have been on a first-name basis. I had the Covid test administered three times and showed negative all three times. I even failed a chest x-ray. But still I coughed and blew, and sneezed, and drained, etc. All of this reminds me of an earlier stretch when I had seen my doctor way too frequently, causing him to comment that we needed to just meet somewhere for coffee and discuss reformed theology. He didn’t laugh when I replied, “For you, that will be a $25 co-pay.” To my young readers, take this as a foretaste of things to come. To my fellow, senior-adult readers, well, you know . . . This scripture now is stuck over my desk, “Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am” (Psalm 39:4).
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