Life Is a Mist

Sometimes I hear a message on Sunday morning that speaks to my heart. This Sunday, Pastor Candice talked about the book of James. The gist of the section was we should not brag about tomorrow because we don’t know what tomorrow might bring. I underlined, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

This really puts into perspective how fleeting life is and what a small speck our years here on earth are in the realm of eternity. So what do we do with our precious time? We fight. We argue. We worry about tomorrow. We think of ourselves as important—at least in our own little corner of the world.

When I was a little girl, I sometimes wondered if people existed when they weren’t where I could see them. Talk about thinking I was the center of the world! I don’t know at what point in my life I stopped those foolish thoughts. At least I was a kid. I know people who think the world revolves around them and they are supposedly all grown up.

The thought that life is but a mist really fits into my line of thought now. As Dorothy said, when she was in OZ, “My! People come and go so quickly here.” If you think about the people in your life, you will see that like the mist, they sometimes surround you with love and other times they vanish into thin air.

We lose people for a lot of reasons. Often, the reason is indifference. They no longer play a relevant part in our lives, and we let them slip away into the mist of the forgotten. Sometimes, the reason is distance. Separation can be caused by miles and miles of physical distance, or by the distance of growing apart philosophically or simply from having nothing in common.

Other people we love regardless of how far adrift they are from our everyday lives. Family ties can transcend any barriers. Friends are the family we choose. True friends can practically pick up in the middle of a conversation although they may have not seen each other for months.

When we are separated from our loved ones by death, sometimes we can feel their presence and at times reach out to touch them in our minds, hearts, and dreams. They are gone, but they are here in a way that can comfort us. Memories can hit with such force that it takes our breath away. The mist clears and we find ourselves in another moment, another time, a different dimension.

Life is a mist. What is important? I remember one time a woman asked me if I was jealous of my sister because she lived in a new, lovely home. At the time, Jim and I were renting an old house with sloping floors and ill-fitting windows. We had old furniture we’d bought from a second hand store. Still, I thought it sounded like a ridiculous idea. “No,” I said. “I’m happy for her.” And I meant it. I had zero jealousy or envy.

What is important to me is not to be famous, rich, or have my name remembered by strangers. I have no desire to be important in worldly ways. All I want is to fulfill the mission I’ve been given in life. I want to give more than I take. I want to love and to be loved.

I want to know the good I can do and then do it. I don’t want to do it for outward recognition; I want to do it for the way it makes me feel on the inside.

When my mist vanishes, I want my legacy to be a life well lived, and more importantly, a life well loved.

Copyright © September 2019 by L.S. Fisher

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