My kids are grown, and I have grandchildren now. Every day I become more acutely aware of how temporary life is – and how short a time we are given on this earth. It’s not a sad or scary knowledge, it’s just an ever-sharpening awareness that I don’t have forever. It gives me focus. It provides relief when I am in painful or uncertain circumstances, and it challenges me to maximize the opportunities I am given.

The days of raising children will, one day, be a memory for you as they are for me. I challenge you to be very intentional about how you use your time, knowing that “the days are long but the years are short.”

All Things Shall Pass Away
By Theodore Tilton

Once in Persia ruled a king
Who upon his signet ring
Bore a motto true and wise
Which, when held before his eyes,
Gave him counsel at a glance
Fit for any change or chance.
Solemn words, and these were they:
“Even this shall pass away.”

Trains of camels through the sand
Brought him gems from Samarkand;
Fleets of galleys through the seas
Brought him pearls to rival these.
Yet he counted little gain
Treasures of the mine or main.
“Wealth may come, but not to stay;
Even this shall pass away.”

‘Mid the revels of his court,
In the zenith of his sport,
When the palms of all his guests,
Burned with clapping at his jests,
He, amid his figs and wine,
Cried: “Oh, precious friends of mine,
Pleasure comes, but not to stay –
Even this shall pass away.”

Lady, fairest ever seen,
Was the bride he crowned his queen.
Pillowed on his marriage bed
Softly to his soul he aid:
“Though no bridegroom ever pressed
Fairer bosom to his breast,
Mortal flesh must come to clay –
Even this shall pass away.”

Fighting in a furious field,
Once a javelin pierced his shield,
Soldiers with a loud lament
Bore him bleeding to his tent.
Groaning, from his wounded side,
“Pain is hard to beat,” he cried.
“But, with patience, day by day,
Even this shall pass away.”

Towering in the public square,
Twenty cubits in the air,
Rose his status grand in stone;
And the king, disguised, unknown,
Gazing on his sculptured name,
Asked himself: “And what is fame?
Fame is but a slow decay —
Even this shall pass away.”

Struck with palsy, sere and old,
Standing at the gates of gold,
Spake he thus, in dying breath:
“Life is done, and what is death?”
Then, in answer to the king,
Fell a sunbeam on the ring,
Answering, with its heavenly ray:
“Even death shall pass away.”