The Things That Matter

 "So we look not at things which are seen, but at the things which are unseen;
for the things which are visible are temporal, just brief and fleeting, but the
 things which are invisible are everlasting and imperishable."
(2 Corinthians 4:18)

Dramatic Gray Sky Sunset Over The Pacific Ocean In California

Image courtesy/Freepik

Standing on the shore with the waves of the Pacific rolling to my feet, I looked over

the waters as far as my eyes could reach until the gray of the ocean merged with the

gray of the horizon's rim.  One could not be distinguished from the other. 

Where, within my vision, the waters stopped and the skies began I could not tell,

so softly they blended one into the other. The waves rolled in regularly, beating a

rhythm of time, but the skies above them were unmeasured-so vast and far-reaching

that the mind of man could not comprehend it.

A symbol of time and eternity-time spaced by our counting into years, breaking at
our feet as the waves break on the shore; and eternity, unmeasurable as the skies
above us-blending one into the other at the farthest reach of our earthly vision.

As the New Year comes, seemingly with ever-increasing swiftness, there is a 
feeling that life is too short to accomplish the things we must do. But there is all
eternity blending with the end of time for the things that are really worthwhile.

We are so overwhelmed with things these days that our lives are all, more
or less, cluttered.  I believe it is this, rather than the shortness of time, 
 that gives us that feeling of hurry and almost of helplessness.  

Everyone is hurrying and usually just a little late.  

Notice the faces of the people who rush past on the streets or on our
country roads!  They nearly all have a strained, harassed look, and anyone
you meet will tell you there is no time for anything anymore.

Life is so complicated! The day of the woman whose only needed tool
was a hairpin is long since passed.  But we might learn something from her
and her methods even yet, for life would be pleasanter with some of the
strain removed-if it were no longer true, as someone has said, that,
"things are in the saddle and rule mankind."

Here is a good New Year's resolution for us all to make: To simplify our lives
as much as possible, to overcome that feeling of haste by remembering that
there are just as many hours in the day as ever, and that there is time enough
for all the things that matter if time is rightly used.

Then, having done the most we may here, when we reach the limit of time,
we will sail on over the horizon rim to new beauties and greater understanding.

Image courtesy/PBS

"The Things That Matter"
(January 1924)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer
and pioneer girl.
Author of the "Little House" series.
An essay from the book,
Little House In The Ozarks
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
(1991)
Guideposts Edition