Filling the Unforgiving Minute

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Helga

I have pretty much sucked the marrow out of today and it’s not even over. But first, yesterday evening we went to Bertha’s for dinner. When Julian is here we eat out a lot. It’s mainly because he feels bad about using our car every time he comes and also using our back room for the books he buys in Cape Town. We have not been to Berthas for years. The evening was perfect. So still. We sat outside and enjoyed the view…

The food was great and the service was very good. We had a fabulous waiter named Ashley.

David also enjoyed it. I wondered about this photo. Fast forward just thirty years (2048) when one of my grandchildren is paging through this blog and comes upon this photo. She/he will shake their head….”Dad!” they may say, “I can’t believe you looked like that!” Yip. David one month to the day before his 27th birthday. You my young grandchild were not even a twinkle in his eye!  But the Lord knows of your existence and you are being prayed for even now.

So that was last night.

This morning I rose early and got straight on with some work. I worked for an hour and a half, did my Bible reading and then Mike & I met up with Julian for breakfast. Then I went to gym and ran 7km. That’s what breakfast before gym does. My time wasn’t brilliant (54 minutes), but the ground got covered and I am a bit fitter than I was before.

#556 of my 1000 thanks is for those 7km. 🙂

I came home, had a short but proper shower (not a bucket wash) and washed my hair. Then I did a bit of hand washing, hung that on the line and went to Bible study.

Yes, I was “filling the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run!” After Bible study, I came home, had a rest, then got to work as I had a Skype call at 4pm. Work complete, I did Mike’s invoice for the month and now am busy with the blog.

The quote above is from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”, written in 1895. My Mom had it hanging on her wall and I often think of her when I read the words…

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

There is sound wisdom in some of these words, but none so sound as what we read in the Word of God.

John 14:6

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Words to live by.

These are the days.

Keep the smile going.

God bless you.

In His Grip,

Helga xx 🙂

 

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