No More Wasted Days

This letter was written by a friend of ours in October of 2003 shortly after Michael was diagnosed with Pontine Glioma.

Not only do these words apply to our religious faith, but also can apply to a lot of things in life. To Alan I say thank you.

Please read it all the way through I believe these beautiful words will make you look at life much differently.

Enjoy

Greetings All

Without divulging names or compromising anyone's dignity, I hope you will
indulge me a few minutes of your time to let me tell you a story.

A close friend of mine called today, and in doing so completely reduced me
to tears and immediately lifted me back up.

An old friend of mine has an 11 year-old son who has terminal cancer. This
in itself would be enough to ask you for prayers and good thoughts and all
the usual stuff you see in this sort of e-mail, but the story just begins
there. As I type and you read the story continues to unfold.

The boy is on his own an amazing kid. I can remember him coming in the
shop to talk to me while waiting for his mom to finish her work in the office.
I can remember when his dad and I worked in that same shop together how the
boy would come into the shop just to see his dad, say hello, and all the
little stuff our kids do that we take for granted. He was always funny and
cheerful, even when his day wasn't going his way. He came in more than
once with a few bumps, bruises, and even a cast or two. Typical boy, the kind
you like to see playing on the sidewalk as you drive in a neighborhood.

No more wasted days.

The boy, his sister, and his mom were church goers long before my friend
came around to it. Since the onset and discovery of his son's illness, he
too has come to know God and His Son, our Saviour. You have to know this
guy to understand the impact this has. Again to preserve folks dignity I wont
go into details, but I will say he is just like the rest of us. Living for
himself as much as anything else.

No more wasted days.

My friend said something to him to change his perspective. During the
process of finding out about his son's terminal cancer, my friend said
something to him that struck me silent. He said, " Your son is facing
death, and what scares him the most is that he doesn't know if he will ever see
you again."
So the little boy knows just where he his heading, and from all reports he
isn't the least bit scared of the whole process. He was worried about
where his dad was going, not where he was heading.

I can’t begin to relate the whole story to you here. I don't know the whole
story. What I do know thus far brings me to tears just to think about. But
I can tell you the "moral of the story".

No more wasted days.

We have kids. We hope they will act right and do good in school and behave
properly and grow up to be intelligent, rich, famous, and successful. We
come home from work so we can push them in athletics, we push them on
their homework, we get mad when they don't get gold stars in conduct, and we
don't have any idea why our teenagers aren't as motivated to "succeed" as we
are.
In all that, we do the one thing we should never do, we take it for
granted that they will be there the next day for us to do it all over again. But
what if they weren't? Would those things be important if you found out
tomorrow that they were terminally ill? Would you care about grades, or
would you just hope that this day lasts for 25 hours, so you can have just
a little more time with them before they go?

Would you take your kid to day care so you can have some "me time" if you
knew their time was short.

What if they went suddenly? Like the old TV adage "it's 10 o'clock, do you
know where your kids are?".....do you know where your kids are going? Do
you teach them about God, about Heaven and Hell, about Jesus? Do you offer
them the chance to go to church or be active with a Christian youth group? We
spend so much effort to get our kids to football practice, but do we put
as much effort in getting them to Heaven? Do we just keep telling ourselves
that we will eventually teach our kids about God? Do we expect they will
figure it out for themselves? Or are we too in love with ourselves and our
way of life to become accountable? Do we shy away from teaching our kids
about Christ because we ourselves are just a little bit scared of the idea?
Do we avoid that because we want to keep on living the way we live?

NO MORE WASTED DAYS!

Or worse, do we send our kids to get God, while we sit at home to watch
football. Are we so tired from our work week that we can’t find an ounce of
energy to give to our kid's spiritual well-being. Or maybe you are like
me, going to church on Sunday morning, but telling my kid he might not be able
to go to the evening service cause we have stuff to do around the house
that is infinitely more important than anything at church. Can’t possibly get to
church on Wednesday night because GRADES are exponentially more important
than getting to Heaven. And on top of that, you know that on Wednesday
night The Bachelor is on at 8:00 and there is no way we can make it home from
church in time to see the beginning, and of course it is so much more
important to watch people exploit their silly little lives on national TV
than it is to go LEARN ABOUT GOD.

No more wasted days

So suddenly my friends’ life is aligned with a completely different
perspective. He has no reason to plan for his son's college, even his high
school graduation. More trivial little things we take for granted. He won’t
have to worry about things like buying him a car. He won’t ever have to buy
him his own rifle for deer hunting, and he likely won’t need any more
fishing poles. Little things like prom, soccer and football, things like that that
are such an important part of most of our day-to-day existence are not
important for my friend. But my friend's son summed it all up in just
wanting to be sure his dad would make it to Heaven.

That boy didn't care about missing high school graduation or marriage or
anything. He told his dad from the hospital bed that when he got to
Heaven, he would talk to God on his dad's behalf. He isn't scared of what lays
before him, but he wants to share God before he leaves this Earth.

This past weekend they were all baptized together as a family before the
church. They quit wasting time, wasting days, and got their lives in order
before God in preparation for what lies ahead. They aren't taking any
minutes, let alone days, for granted. They cherish each SECOND they have
with that boy, and God is using the boy to bless literally hundreds of
people right now by the continual re-telling of the story of how this all
has come about. There is not a second of wasted time in their lives, and
there shouldn't be any in ours either.

I am personally finished with the sugar-coating. There are some facts that
all of us have ignored long enough.

There is nothing on TV as important as your child's salvation, or yours.
There is nothing on TV as important as a conversation about why grass is
green and why birds fly... with your child.
You cannot waste any more time convincing yourself and your family that
you don't need to go to church to worship God. Unless you are putting together
a sermon every Sunday and turning off the TV, it aint worship, it is a lie.
You cannot continue to think that you are in complete control of your life
and the lives around you. It is time to recognize that there is a higher
authority and you are best served by serving Him.
You cannot allow yourself to depart from this life with your kids
wondering if you went to Heaven or Hell.
You cannot allow your kids to depart this life without knowing the same
thing.
If you aren't teaching your kids for God, then you are teaching them
against Him.
Baseball, Basketball, Soccer, Softball, Volleyball, Football, Golf, or
Nintendo mean nothing from the grave. It is a GAME. Eternity is not. If
you are putting more emphasis on your kids athleticism than their
Christianity, you are not doing your job.
No matter how rough your day was at work, it wasn't your kids fault and
they still need the same love and attention you give them on Saturdays.
How "tough" you are as a Dad is stupid and meaningless. If you want to be
a good dad, do it the way God does it. What a horrible thought it would be
for your son to pass from this life having never heard "I LOVE YOU SON" from
his Dad. How terrible it is to think that somewhere there is a young boy who
has never heard his Dad pray.

NO MORE WASTED DAYS.

to know Your will
to seek your plan
I need your help
to be a man....
who knows Your will
and seeks Your ways
No more compromise, and no more wasted days.
Finally, I beg of each of you, regardless of denomination, depth of faith,
or understanding of the process, to pray for a family just outside of
Houston for strength, and a little boy for courage. I truly believe in
miracles, and healing by faith makes complete sense to me. Not the kind on
TV where you get hit on the head, but the deep meaningful prayers of many
for the healing of one. God can and does work daily miracles of healing,
and I beg of you to pray on this boy's behalf.

A close friend of mine, and his son, reminded me today to quit wasting time.

In Christ,

Alan E. Martin
DELTAK Construction Services, Inc.
amartin@deltak.com
www.deltak.com