Psalm 102

This is getting personal again.

As I read through this I was most affected by verse 23. The psalmist speaks of his days being shortened, being weakened. "Oh, my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days!"

What does that mean, "in the midst of my days"? It has personal meaning for me. It may mean a different thing to you, or maybe nothing.

It seems like for all of us as we get older our days become shortened. I mean in the sense that we are slower. We also get weaker in the brain perhaps. For me personally I think I am tempted to care less, thinking I won't be here much longer. I feel "weened away" in a reference to Our Town.

This is not a good thing. I want to not think like this. This seems part of finishing well, finishing our lives strong. This seems to use the analogy of running a race. As the race reaches it's end we do not slow down, we run as fast as we did, perhaps even pick up the pace. But perhaps the analogy breaks down when we get older. As the energy gets lower and our bodies get more frail surely God does not expect as much from us. We can rebel against this reality to some degree. But we cannot ignore it.

God is forever. But our time here is limited. What does it mean to be "taken in the midst of my days"? Does it mean taken while I still have a lot of goals not accomplished? I have not seen my grandchildren? I still have lots of friends that I will miss? Perhaps I have not seen my children married or even not gotten married yet and I hoped to?

What would be the opposite of being taken in the midst of my days?

I am reminded of people who did die young. Right now I am thinking specifically of two who were close to DW and I - JO and AR. I think about them from time to time. They are in their reward. Somehow it was their time to go. And yet when they went it seemed so unexpected. It is still hard to realize that they are gone.

Yet I am not sure if I would say they were taken in the midst of life. In certain ways I think their lives had reached an eddy if we are taking the analogy of water flowing down a stream. I would not have said they were in the midst of the current.

Yet both were believers acting on their belief. Their lives were different because of their faith. They were witnesses by their lives. Sure they were not perfect. To me that made their lives and witness even more miraculous. They trusted their savior. They knew they needed one. We all do.