It started with the mother's ring on my
right hand. Three birthstones set in a row on a band, one for each of
my sons, it was a piece of jewelry I treasured almost as much as the
boys themselves. I looked down at it at work one day and suddenly
noticed one of the stones was missing! Horrified, when I got home
that evening I worked the ring off my finger (over these knuckles? No
small feat!) and hid it carefully away before telling my family about
my loss. I knew instinctively (and correctly!) that the moment my
sons heard about it they would rally to find it and figure out which
of the three of them was on the “outs” with his mother while the
other two were still secure in their standing! For once the merciless
teasing was forstalled by my advance planning!
My husband kindly had the ring repaired
for me, and a couple of months passed without incident. Then again
while at work one day I happened to look down at my hands, and this
time it was the band on my engagement ring that had split
completely through!
“Are you kidding me?” I
muttered to myself. Worn thin after 35 years of life and love and
laughter with my husband, it had simply given way. Because the
engagement ring was welded to the wedding band, I had to remove the
entire set (another miracle!) and took it in for repair at the first
opportunity. I chuckled when the jewelry store said they would call
with a price estimate on the repair. I knew I'd pay any amount to get
it fixed; the rings were simply priceless to me.
Yet the empty feeling on my left hand
bothered me, so I dug in my jewelry box for something to wear in my
wedding bands' place. I found a ring with a tiger's eye in a simple
setting, a piece of jewelry I'd had so long that I couldn't even
remember where I got it but liked it enough to keep it all these
years. Gladly I worked it onto my finger and was happy to have it
till my wedding set was restored to me. It lasted a full week before
I happened to notice while again scanning groceries one day that that
stone had likewise disappeared, leaving an empty setting behind!
What was it about weighing bunches of
kale on a scale and sliding boxes of cereal down a belt that was so
hard on my rings, I wondered? It didn't make sense that after eleven
years on the job I suddenly couldn't keep a ring on my finger to save
my life! It was such a strange occurrence of events that surely there
was some message attached to it, one that I clearly wasn't receiving.
“I hope I figure it out soon,” I thought to myself. “I don't
know how many rings I have left!”
Suddenly, there it was! I don't know
how many rings I have left.
The former forester in me remembered
that the age of a tree is measured in the growth rings that are
visible in a crosscut of the trunk, a ring for every year of life.
How many “rings” do each of us have left? We simply don't know.
It's possible to determine a tree's age
without cutting it down; foresters carry a tool called an increment
borer which removes a core sample from the trees on which the rings
are clearly visible and easily counted. But the sample reveals more
than just the tree's age. It shows growth patterns in the life of the
tree, years in which the tree grew well as well as those in which
growth was stunted for some reason by environmental conditions or
disease.
We Christians carry a similar tool in
our pockets in the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is the mercy of
God that before our lives are cut down He gives us the means to
examine our past, evaluate our growth and consider problem areas in
our relationships with Him and the people around us...while there is
still time to correct them! Sometimes He just needs to get our
attention.
My ring situation did that for me. The
mother's ring reminded me of my joy in my boys, prompting me to keep
them close in heart in specific ways and deliberately clear my
schedule when the opportunity presents itself for us to get together.
Similarly, a marriage can't survive if the joy of the engagement and
early years is lost in life's busyness; scheduled fun times with a
spouse is a marital must. And who among us doesn't have treasured
friends whose faithful love should be remembered, renewed and
rekindled with a deliberate effort to stay in touch?
It's interesting that the losses all
became apparent to me while I was at work. It's easy to slip into the
habit of letting our work situations run our lives and control our
time. We can be still mentally clocked in even when completely off
the job site, our minds still thinking about problems we encountered
and working out solutions when they should be focused on thoughts and
people closer to home. It can lead to an undiagnosed type of
“attention deficit disorder” which, if left untreated, can prove
to be fatal to the relationshps we value the most.
So what can we do about it? There's no
oral medication we can take to instantly fix relationshps that have
lost their luster. I had to send my rings in to be repaired, a good
reminder that we can't fix all of our problems ourselves; we simply
need to ask for help from the One who has all the answers. Maybe the
Good Doctor will first prescribe a new set of eyeglasses through
which we view our life and the people in it. Then He'll work on our
heart to get the love flowing freely in all the right directions once
more. He'll renew our mind and readjust our priorities so that the
most important things...and people...in our lives get our attention
first. Perhaps the best treatment is simply to give us a glimpse of
the brevity of life, to remind us that we simply don't know
how much time we have left. If change is to occur, it has to begin
now...today.
Whether or not my jewelry will be
repaired in time for Valentine's Day, this year I'll be thanking God
for the gift of three broken rings that redirected my love and
attention to those in my inner circle...while there is yet time to
hold them close.
“whereas you do not
know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a
vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”
(James 4:14 NKJV)
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