Saturday
Messages -- How They All Began.
On
23 June 2000, I sent out a message to several of my friends which included the
story about taking a marble out of the container every Saturday to remind
oneself of the passage of time. The story is found after the correspondence
below.
After
that exchange of messages, I came up with the idea to send out a message each
and every Saturday morning to remind my family and friends of the shortness and
fragility of life.
It
was my hope to "touch one's heart and inspire one's soul".
Here is the response I received from a dear friend.
Don:
What a great story!!! All is well here and we hope also with you guys. All
the kids will be home for a week with two grand kids. Things couldn't be
better.
Keep the Faith!!!!!
John
Here
is my
reply to my longtime friend:
John,
I
agree that this was a great story!!! It certainly makes someone
our age give pause when you realize that we don't need 1,000 marbles
for our containers, but only about half that many.
May
you enjoy all your Saturdays.... and may you enjoy the week long you have with
the "kids" and grandkids. Tell them we send our very best to one and
all.... and give'em a hug for us.
I
fully agree..... God is great, God is good and life is grand.
Blessings
in the faith,
Don
23 June 2000
Subject: Saturdays
Dear Ones,
Here is a story I read recently
which I wish to share with you. I don't know who authored the story, but I
hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
The older I get, the more I enjoy
Saturday mornings.
Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or
maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way,
the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.
A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup
of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other.
What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons
that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it.
I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in
order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came
across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice.
You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business.
He was telling whoever he was talking with something about
"a thousand marbles".
I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. "Well
Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay
you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so
much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy
hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance
recital."
He continued, "let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped
me keep a good perspective on my own priorities."
And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand
marbles."
"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic.
The average person lives about
seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on
average, folks live about seventy-five years."
"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the
number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.
Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important
part."
"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in
any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over
twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be
seventy-five, only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy."
"So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had.
I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I
took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right
here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have
taken one marble out and thrown it away."
"I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the
really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your
time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."
"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take
my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last
marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday
then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all
use is a
little more time."
"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your
family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 73 Old Man, this
is K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off.
I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on
the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to
work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my
wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to
breakfast."
"What brought this on?"
she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long
time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids.
Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some
marbles."
HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AND MAY ALL SATURDAYS BE SPECIAL!
Don
Teach us to
number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12
Don't just
count your days, make your days count.
Anon
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