Eighteen Months

You sit in the leather chair facing a large oak desk.  The wall behind it, as well as the adjoining walls, are hung with certificates, degrees, doctorates all proclaiming the qualifications of the man who is speaking.  The words sound like distorted voices you would hear while under water. The air seems to have been completely sucked from your lungs while your pounding heart reverberates throughout your whole being.

Your spouse immediately begins offering words of encouragement, taking charge and beginning to make plans.  As they hold your hand, every muscle in their body is fighting to not give in to fear and to not reflect anything but determination and support in their countenance. In the days to come you feel disconnected. You don’t want to talk about it. You want to pretend you never sat in that office or heard those words.

TWELVE TO EIGHTEEN MONTHS.

You had asked for the truth and got it.  Eighteen months on the outside with taking every treatment that can be pumped and prodded into your ailing body. As you are led from one treatment to another, the reality begins to sink in more with every needle prick. And the quiet tears begin to flow. The prayers come; the anger comes mixed with the questions. “Why me”? What are they going to do without me? Who is going to take care of this or that? The emotions erupt in volcanic proportion with fallout landing on anyone who is around.  Then one day it is all gone.  All of the emotion is spent.

If what man says is true and your life has become finite with X number of days available to you, a choice will be made. You can spend your remaining days partying and in denial. You can spend your remaining days angry with God and all of life. You can sink into a depression and self pity. Or you can look around and cherish everything that is really precious in your life.

Think about it.

Your spouse, that gets on your nerves so badly with his stinky socks and farts.  You wonder if the man was ever capable of putting a dish in the sink or picking up clothes.  If you had to watch another football or golf game you think you would scream.  His sense of humor is sooo corny. And you wonder if he speaks your language because he cant seem to understand what you are saying most times.  But if you KNOW that person would be taken from you, it changes how you see them.  Those corny jokes become sweet and more humorous. The dirty clothes and dishes don’t matter. What matters is when you are cuddled up beside them while they touch your hair. When you can look in their eyes or hear in their voice how much you mean to them. And you know what they mean to you. You know that if its only eighteen months or eighteen days, you want to spend them with this person.

Your children. They don’t listen to you. They don’t show appreciation. They sure don’t do what you think they should.  You wonder how their lives veered so far from the path you had chosen for them.  But you have X number of days.  With X number of days, you begin to see past their choices and mistakes. Amazingly you can only see the face of the little child who snuggled up to you that you have loved so dearly. You can see the same vulerability that they had as they climbed in your lap with tear streaked faces and scraped knees.

Ambition. Ambition could be your job, your business or your dreams of stardom. I used to measure my success by my bank account.  But with eighteen months, what you accomplish here doesn’t matter anymore. All the money or acclaim this world has to offer wont give you one day more.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s God. You are left with one inevitable truth facing you. Your life is completely in God’s hands. At that time, you can choose to completely surrender all control to Him and accept that whatever the outcome may be, that you trust Him.

God made this perspective very clear to me one night several months ago and it has completely changed my life.

Besides the change in perspective that I have already discussed, it made me think. If I had only eighteen months left what would I want to do with them.  I came to the conclusion that I would want to spend every last day being completely committed to my God.  Not because there would be an end to my life and I was afraid of hell. But because He has been so good to me that I want to give everything back to Him that I can.  All that I am, all that I have, however imperfect I may be.  He has sheltered me, loved me, saved me, protected my family and brought me through unimaginable dark times. In my darkest hours He wrapped me in His love and wouldn’t let go.

A lifetime seems like it will last forever.  While we know there is an end, we can’t typically relate to it. If we were to live our lives as if we only had eighteen months to live you would find that you could throw off unnecessary shackles. You would find it easier to focus on the ones that you love and the things that really matter. Live like you have only eighteen months even if you have 180 years.