New Address Book

I was recently given a new address book. The one I had been using was about 30 years old! At first I wasn’t motivated to transfer addresses to the new one. I procrastinated, until I found time and energy. What a rollercoaster I had while doing it. Names of people long gone, dead or disappeared, brought back memories of them, but embarrassingly, I could not recall who certain people were. I had no recollection of them whatsoever. They must have been casual acquaintances, people I bumped into during my travels and sailing adventures.


Certain friends, true friends have departed this life, while others await their turn. Of the latter, who will be taken first, they or me, I cannot tell. Working alphabetically through names, a few individuals cropped up time and again, because they had often moved home; others had remained where they had first settled, and two of them, older friends, are alive today. My new address book has 58 addresses, and the old one contained 168. That speaks volumes.


Over the passage of time we may meet many people beyond our family circle: workmates, members of a church, a club, a team, a choir or friends with similar interests who are not just passing acquaintances, but people with whom we socialize and strengthen our ties, even those with whom we forge bonds of loyalty and trust. Life is a journey, and along the way we have the privilege of meeting people, sharing our experiences, helping one another and giving support in good and bad times. A parting of ways can come about because our friends of necessity move, perhaps to the other end of the country, or to foreign lands. Others develop new interests and new friends, preferring them to former ones. Inevitably, death brings about the loss of loved ones. Friends may become less in number, but family may increase with the coming of grandchildren and great grandchildren.


One day, my name will be removed from address books, and eventually there will be no trace of me. The same fate awaits us all. Even the great, who have their names engraved in stone, those with statues in city squares or cathedrals will no longer be the talk of the town. At the very end of time there will be no history books, no computers, no pyramids, nothing to remember people by, and no earth, as it is now, but what a privilege it will be to experience a new, fuller life of sharing with the Creator who invites us into His kingdom. Entrance to that kingdom is through faith in His Son.



Texts of the Day


Matthew 11:28 ‘Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest.’


Ephesians 2:89 ‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.’