The Second Best Time

I remember a few years ago, one of my friends had a daughter who had just started dating. We were joking around about it. He said, "When she comes home from that first date, I'm going to be sitting on the front porch cleaning my shotgun." I said, "You don't even have a shotgun." He said, "I know. But I'm going to buy one just for the occasion!" We laughed. But underneath the laughter I could tell there was a legitimate sadness — a realization that his daughter was growing up, that she didn't need him the way she once did. She was no longer that little girl clinging to his legs.

That moment captured something most of us know but rarely say out loud. Things don't stay the same. Children grow up. Friends change. Some move away. Some pass away. We change. And even if we want to go back, we can't. That is not the way life works.

What we can do is appreciate what we have right now. We can practice gratitude for this moment, for the people around us today.

In one of his Dial Hope messages, my friend Roger Kunkel wrote about a sign he saw at a plant nursery. It said, "The best time to buy a tree was 20 years ago." Roger read that and thought, "Thanks a lot!" But on the back of the sign he noticed these words: "The second best time to buy a tree is today." Today.

That is true in life as well. If there are wrongs you need to amend, forgiveness you need to offer, things you need to let go of, people who need to hear how much you love them — don't wait for the perfect moment. We are so good at waiting for the right moment. But the right moment has a way of never quite arriving. Whatever it is — the phone call, the apology, the word of love long overdue — today is as good a day as any. 

Prayer: O God of ages past, O God of years to come, we sit now in your presence giving thanks for all the time you have given us — time with family and friends, times of tears and laughter, times of hardship and of joy. Even as we look back, help us to appreciate all that is around us even now. May we make the most of the time we have today. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.

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