Expiration Date

My sweet mother was notorious for several things ... well, at least she was notorious in our family anyway. Like the way she would preface so many sentences with the words, "Lord, help!" or how she always called ice cream "ice creamy" or her love of shoes (she had hundreds of pairs at one point in her life) or her obsession with cleaning off the cascading porches on the back of her house with the water hose or her complete and total dislike of four-legged creatures of any kind. Perhaps one of the most interesting of Mom's notorious little quirks, however, was her approach concerning the expiration dates on food. Yep, expiration dates ... Mom had a thing about expiration dates.

You see, Mom's theory was that food companies placed expiration dates on products just to get you to purchase more food by making you think that the food had "gone bad" when it was really just fine. Down through the years, I watched Mom open various containers of food, give them the smell test to determine whether they were still "good" or not, and then proceed to either trash the item or eat away. She rarely even looked at an expiration date, except to complain about the food companies' desire to make you throw away food that had "not a dern thing wrong with it." As I stood at my refrigerator last night checking the dates on several items, I couldn't help but think of Mom ... and how she would have surely eaten the yogurt that I pitched because it was a couple of days past the expiration date marked on the container. Oh, Mom, how I do miss you sometimes and your funny little ways.

Sometimes I think God causes me to roll things around in my head for a while so that what He wants to teach me finally sinks through to me. Hence, I've thought about the whole expiration date concept since last night ... in fact, it was so much on my mind that I woke up a couple of times in the night thinking about it. Well, that and one certain little wiener dog kept rooting me to the edge of the bed, but that's another story for another blog. The more I thought about it, the more profound I think God's lesson for me (and maybe some of you) really is.

You see, I don't have an expiration date stamped on me ... only God knows when my life here on earth will end. But ... one day, it will most definitely end; that is a certainty. In fact, I've come to understand that most things that we often consider so important in this life expire ... jobs expire, friendships expire, cars expire, money expires, dreams expire, words expire, marriages expire ... everything, really, that is of this world, expires or will one day. Everything. Except ... God and His love. Talk about an expiration date ... "All of eternity."

I used to often say that I wished God would send me a DVD of what the future was going to bring into my life, but I don't think I want to know anymore. I'm glad I don't know when my expiration date is, that only God knows ... not me, not the doctors, not my children or my family, not my friends ... only God knows. And I'm good with that. I'm really good with that.