What a difference a year makes!

I used my flash drive the other day.  

I clicked on a folder.  This is what I saw:

It was ironic because it was exactly one year before that we had been standing in this very spot almost to the minute when I saw it.

It has got me thinking about my grand adventure.  Today, I perused my pictures to see where I had been today one year ago.

Looking at amazing jelly fish.

Feeding a very fat and demanding squirrel.

Never mind that crunched in corner of my poor car.

And trying to take a silly picture of a "sea monster" coming out of the ocean to eat an unsuspecting hootiekin.

We had been stuck at Hearst Beach off of Hwy 1 due to a horrific accident.  Several people had died right in front of us and traffic was at a stand still.  The children had been squabbling in the back.  I briefly pulled over and scolded them and pulled back out onto the road.  The very cars that had past me were involved in the wreck.  It was that close.  The children did not grasp our own possible outcome and how blessed we had been but one year later, I still think about it.  

The passage of time becomes more bittersweet as you get older.  You want to suck up and make the most of every second you have.  It is impossible not to take an inventory of it all occasionally.  Questions like:  If it had been us in that accident, was there any of us that needed to go to confession?  How do you impart to these young people the importance of making the best decisions in every moment because you cannot return and erase them?  On and on.

"Lost wealth may be restored by industry, - the wreck of health regained by temperance, - forgotten knowledge restored by study,  - alienated friendship smoothed into forgetfulness, - even forfeited reputation won by penitence and virtue.  But who ever looked upon his vanished hours, - recalled his slighted years, - stamped them with wisdom, - or effaced from Heaven's record the fearful blot of wasted time?"

I decided that I would look back and see what we were doing in years past.

 2007

  At a horse show.  Even Oreo is much younger then and poor Goldie's mane and forelock had been trimmed by an over exuberant boy.

2008 

Playing in the Atlantic Ocean at St. Augustine, Florida

2009 

 I can't seem to find the pictures but we were hauling a horse to Houston, Texas and playing in the Gulf water at Galveston, TX.

2010 

 Right around the same time - We were watching our very first Oratory football game.

As we neared the end of the trip last year, the finality of it all hit me.

I realized that for one month we had been taking pictures and had only 2 or 3 with the whole clan.

People were tired.  Two were needing a restroom that was nowhere in sight.  One didn't have any shoes and had a severely infected knee by now.  

Nobody wanted to sit for it at all.  They were done.  I was not.

I insisted that we take one picture with everyone.  My camera propped up on my purse and here it is.

A snap shot in time.

It makes me think of what we will have done and where we will have gone in this next year.

One thing is for sure, however, the passage of time waits for no man.  We do not know what our tomorrows may bring.  We are accountable to Almighty God for each and every second of our lives.  Those that were well spent and that time that was wasted.  It is a most precious gift that God gives us.  

So as each moment passes and with each decision we make, we should ask ourselves, "Will this help to lead me into eternity, where time is eternal, to spend it in heaven or into eternal damnation?"  

None of us know the hour which we will be called to give an account for this time here on earth.

God bless you all.