Do you have a jar full of Marbles?

 

 

 

 With all the events that have taken place in our lives in the past few months, I have come to realize that we try and hurry things along. Thinking we have to "hurry up" and do that.....or "hurry up" and do this....or pray, please dear LORD "hurry up" and make things happen. Life is something that is given to each one of us and most of us are hurrying through it....and WHY?? There are a few sayings that we should all remember and put into our lives......the first to me being that when we ask for troubles to be handled then we need to "relax" and realize that GOD will handle them in his time...no "hurrying up". The second being that we need to stop saying "When I find the time"....you never find the time....you have to MAKE the time. Life can be short or life can be long...we never know just how much we have. We need to slow down....count our blessings, cherish memories that we make of our family, friends and life and realize to have those memories we have to make them first. Slow down...make the time. Put some marbles in a jar!!!

The following story isn't something that I wrote but it is something that definitely relates to my feelings about slowing down . A friend sent this to me in an email.  I think it caught her eye to send because of a saying in it...."If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you" Anyone that has children probably know this saying. It's from a very famous Bear....Winnie the Pooh. I tell my youngest son this every night before we go to sleep. The story also made me realize that I have to start making time for the important things in life and stop "Hurrying up" all the things that can wait a bit.

 Marbles

 A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage 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 whomever 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.. It's too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital" he continued. "Let me tell you something that has helped me keep 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, I 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 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 that 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.  This is a 75 Year old Man, 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.  And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out?  I need to buy some marbles."

 

A friend sent this to me, so I to you, my friend.

 

And as one smart bear once said..."If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.." - Winnie the Pooh.

 

Until Next time......

Hugs,

Regi