Saving the Best to Last

The picture is of a beautiful sunset near the beach of Grandview Campground in Rochester NH. Sometimes God does save the best to last. That night the colors just kept evolving with pinks and purples and oranges for what seemed like a hour. It was as if God just planned a special event for us that evening.

I have been watching the World Cup Soccer Tournament. When the USA fell behind or scored the winning goal near the end in match after match, and always managed to pull it out in the end, it did feel like saving the best to last was just great. Today however they fell behind twice and they couldn't come back to the win in order to move on to the next match. The best wasn't saved to last today. They were eliminated from the tournament. It was clear really all along that the team was giving up to many early goals and putting themselves in difficult circumstances. Some times it is just plain too late. The best to the last philosophy doesn't always cut it.

I was so grateful that my marriage to Marsha just got better and better through the years. In some ways our life together was saving the best to last, but we did live looking forward to our time of retirement that never really materialized. We looked forward to so much that will never happen, and I regret some of that. One thing is for sure we both found the absolute best when we found our personal relationship with Christ our Lord in 1979. For both of us that was and is the peak, the pinnacle, the Everest of a human life. We didn't save that best until last in that case, we enjoyed many years of that blessing, and it made even the difficulty of Marsha's illness and death a time of deep love and sharing.

It could be nice to save the best to last, but remember in some circumstances it can just be too late.