don't miss the sun for the fog

​Earlier this week, I found out my friend Todd Whitaker died. Todd and I worked together at Eckerd Youth Alternatives for a couple of years.

One of the fondest memories of my 13 years with Eckerd was a 2-week wilderness canoe trip I took with ten at-risk kids. Todd was one of my co-counselors on that trip. I'll never forget how naturally Todd cared for those kids. I'll never forget how tirelessly he worked making sure they were safe and taken care of. I'll never forget how much those kids admired him for that.

Todd was just 48 years old. When you get the news someone so young has passed away, it can shake you. It's been years since I've talked to Todd; seasons of life do that to friendships - right or wrong - fair or not fair. Even still, when I heard the news, my heart broke a bit as I thought back on that trip.

When I reflected on that trip, and affectionately recalled some of the incredibly cool kids we shared it with, I'd like to think the biggest message they got from the adults on that trip was there is more to life than what you think.

Many of those kids were coming from homes where they'd been dealt some bad hands. I think their biggest challenges, though, weren't those hands, but more that they thought those were the only hands that got handed out in life. Out there in those canoes, away from all the images of the only world they knew dictating their paths, I'd like to think they saw hope and opportunity. I'd like to think some of them discovered life is too worth engaging in to be constantly running from it.

There are some beautiful words in chapter 4 of James. These words come from The Message translation:

You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing.

Those words are pretty in our face, I guess, as they drive home the fleeting nature of life. They drive home just how uncontrollable the length of our stay is here. But if you read those words carefully, slowly, go back and read them again - you'll discover a question in them. At least I did.

The question is this: are you so caught up living in the fog of tomorrow that you miss today's sunshine?

I see a lot of parents wanting for their kids what we wanted for those kids on that trip.

We want them to embrace life.
We want them to see hope and possibility.
We want them to adopt a lifestyle of be all you can be.

And yet, so many of us live just the opposite. We live so afraid of the fog that we never chase even the briefest moment of sun. So many of us forget that what our kids will become will be far more determined not by what we want for them, but by what they see us wanting for ourselves.

As I get older, I don't worry for a second about death. I don't worry about being taken away too young. I worry that my passing will be marked more by how I left than by how I lived.

I'm thankful for the good memories of my buddy. I'm grateful that the time I got to spend with him was more often than not marked by the sunshine and not a wisp of fog.

I'd ask you to keep his family - especially his teenage daughter - in your prayers; the certainty of death doesn't make it easier for anyone.