The Unfinished Dash

     Every Memorial Day in the United States, you can drive past any cemetery and observe a common sight.  There upon the manicured landscape, stand teary-eyed visitors, come to honor the fallen.  The names on the headstones are all different, but each one shares the same simple message. On the granite surface is carved for generations to read, are a date of birth, and the date of the loved one's death. There is also another chisel mark to acknowledge, there in a simple straight line between the two dates, is a dash. The date of our birth is important to be sure, as is the date of our departure from this life.  But the dash represents a person's life, from first breath to the last gasp. It is a silent mystery known partially to a few souls, but of course known completely by God.

It cannot be emphasized strongly enough to say that the dash is the most important part of our existence. It's not the country of our birth, or the length of our days on Earth, not even the place of our death that really matter.  Here is the main question we all must answer.  What did we do with our life?  What noble, unselfish, merciful, loving, and sacrificial acts are going to be recorded silently within the Workman's stroke called, the Dash?  One of Abraham Lincoln's famous quotes was this, "In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."

For you and me, we need to take an honest inventory of our lives. The Bible cautions us with this truth, "Tomorrow belongs to no man."  How long is our DASH? No one knows, but God.  The wisdom of the Book of Psalms says it like this, "Lord, teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom." Psalms 90:12

It is never too late to start changing what is going to be written unseen by future generations within our dash.  We need to start today, now, this moment. The writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes said, "The person who keeps looking at the clouds will never sow, and never harvest." Ecclesiastes 11:4 
If you are reading this book, you still have a dash to fill up with a good life that blesses others and pleases God.