Leading Purpose: Live Like You are Dying

Happy birthday to my sweet Papa, Clark Clingman Padgett!!!
Today is the 90th anniversary of his birth. He went to his home in heaven in 1981, just ten days after my sixth birthday. He was an amazing man, gifted musically to the extent he was invited to play his fiddle on the Arthur Smith Show and The Grand Old Opry.?
I am thankful for the years my Papa was in my life. He was the father figure in my?first six years of life, and the first man to show love to me. Indeed I felt loved every time I climbed up in his lap while he sat and napped in his recliner. In the past years as I have grown closer to my Heavenly Father, I have grown fond of referring to Him as Papa. This morning I just figured out why that is. Now anytime I hurt, I envision myself as a little girl, crawling up in my Papa's lap, and feeling safe as I nestle my face up to His chest and listen to His heartbeat for me. The death of my Papa was my first experience with death.? Over the next ?21 years, I experienced several more deaths in my immediate family?.eight more family members, including my mom, dad, father-in-law, my great-grandmother who I saw continually during the first eight years of my life, an uncle, and cousins (including my cousin Jason who was my best friend from childhood).?

In 2003, my grandmother died. ?I had lived with her and my Papa off and on from my first birthday through age 5, and after my Papa died, I moved in with her full-time and lived there until I was 17.? Today is January 6, 2013.? The beginning of another new year.? A time when many are still pondering their new year?s resolutions, trying to decide what new projects they will tackle.? A time when many are asking:? "Where did the time go?"?

?Taking stock," as they say, is something that all of us need to do with our life.? And all of us who live long enough eventually will do so.
I am only 37, so it happened a little sooner in life for me than for most people, I think.? My "mid-life crisis" happened early in part because of my parents' early deaths... thiscaused me to realize just how brief life really is, regardless of the dates described on a gravestone.
Mom died at 43 (I was 14), Dad died at 50 (I was 21), and his death was 6 months after my wedding day. The last time I saw him alive I was 12 years old.? My Grandmother who raised me died at age 80 and One Day - 2/26/03.?? When my grandmother died, in some ways her death felt like just one more in a long line of deaths I had to deal throughout two decades.? But her death affected me far more deeply than any of the others?.and perhaps her death was the one that caused me to face the reality of all the deaths I had experienced prior to her passing.? This was because her death caused me to learn one of the hardest lessons of my life.
My grandmother had been in a nursing home for one month, and I had been visiting and/or calling her most every day. I usually went by after work, many days not truly wanting to be there but going because I felt it was my duty. Since I visited so regularly, she had no need to ask me to visit and never did so?until February 25, the day of her 80th birthday.
I had thrown a big party for her the day before, Sunday, 2/24/03. I had fun planning it and bringing all of the family together to spend time with her on that Sunday. Each of us had a great time, and I knew my grandmother had thoroughly enjoyed the day and felt loved.
So the next day, her actual birthday, when I called her from my cell on the way home from work, I told her I wouldn't be visiting that night because I felt physically exhausted. (This was during the time I worked as a manager for a local branch of a multi-national corporation...12-14 hour workdays were common to keep up with the heavy demands of my employer, and during these same years my responsibilities as a County Commissioner used up whatever amount of free time I would have otherwise enjoyed at that time in my life.)
So that Monday night when my Grammie asked me for the first time ever to come see her, I said no. It was my understanding that another family member had plans to visit with her that evening, and I remember feeling guilt but also somewhat justified in saying no... I promised to visit with her the next day when I felt refreshed.? We finished our phone call before I drove into my garage at home, and when my Grammie hung up the phone she visited with my little sister who was there to celebrate her birthday evening with her.
To this day, I still remember exactly where I was driving on Highway 74 when I told her I just couldn't come that night.? I can see the picture clearly in my head, and I can hear the audio stream of our conversation?it?s as vivid in my mind as watching a few minutes of a movie.?
I wish with all my heart I hadn't said no. It would have been so easy and simple for me to just drive ten more minutes to the nursing home and give her a hug and say I love you before going on home to fall into bed.
At around 5:00am the next morning, I was woken up by the telephone...a nurse from Fairhaven rest home called to tell me my grandmother had died in her sleep a few hours earlier.
I have heard someone say that the date of birth and the date of death are unimportant in our lives...that the important part is what we do with the hyphen...each day in between. I couldn't agree more.
I don't know if I will die young like my mom, or at a "ripe old age" like my grandmother ... But either way, I want to Live Like I Am Dying. I first heard Tim McGraw's song by that name right at the time my grandmother died. It became a theme song of sorts for me.
There are plenty of days I haven't used to the fullest in these past ten years, but I can say this with assurance...if I die tonight, I know for absolute certainty I will live with Jesus in Heaven, and all the important people in my life will have evidence of the love I have for them.

I am thankful for the opportunity to celebrate:? my Papa?s 90^th birthday, another New Year Holiday, another dawning of another year of life.? It is good to have opportunity and reason to purposefully consider once again the brevity of life. I am in the best place ever in my life right now, and yet I certainly don't want to take anything for granted. I could leave this world at any minute, and so could any of the people I love.

Life is about Relationships. Today, January 6, 2013, I?recommit to Living Like I Am Dying.

Source: http://leadingpurpose.blogspot.com/2013/01/live-like-you-are-dying.html

KDKA Pumpkin Carving Ideas Hurricane Sandy path opm daylight savings school closings sandy