No Guarantees

Sometimes we don't know what we have until it's gone.  I'm listening to a CD that my friend sings on.  I haven't heard her sing for years.  She sang on the worship team at my church, but has since moved to another church.  She sang regularly on a the team and then on special ocassions sang with 2, 3 and sometimes 4 other woman, all with angelic voices that carried me to another place where beauty and peace ruled over the day to day struggles.  The songs they sang were always too short because I could listen to them for hours.  I heard this friend sang at her church on Christmas and if I had known in time I would have done just about anything to rearrange my schedule in order to hear her.  Maybe that sounds weird, but like I said, sometimes you don't know what you have until it's gone.  Maybe imagine you're favorite band is no longer together or your iPod speakers/headphones go from crisp, sharp sound to static.  Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to be deaf.  I took sign language classes in college, so I wondered if I had to choose to be blind or deaf what would I pick.  I've come up with the same answer over the years.  I would give up seeing the world if I could hear it.  I would give up watching my kids grow up in order to listen to them tell me about their day.  I would give up rainbows and frost on trees early winter mornings and the reflection of the landscape mirrored off the glass surface of a lake.  I'd give those all up to hear the rain beat on my roof as I fall asleep, or hear the crunch of my car tires when it's below zero or the splash of the water and the call of a loon as I paddle around the lake.  

I've hit the repeat on my itunes and listened to my friend sing the same song ten times now.  I could listen for another hour, but I have to get my kids to bed.  I think the next time I get to hear her sing in person it will be more beautiful than ever because I'll be listening harder and praying it won't end.  I bet it will feel a lot like when I have lunch with my friend who had cancer.  Lunch with her before cancer was nice.  Now that's she's beat cancer, every time I see or talk to her is a blessing.  I never take it for granted anymore.  I look at her longer.  I listen closer.  Sometimes I miss what's she actually saying because I'm thinking about how grateful I am to just be with her.  I think, if I could see all the people that are precious to me, as if I might not see them again I wouldn't take them for granted.  I know I can't live like that every day, but maybe if I just imagined on ocassion that there is no guarantee that I will see or hear them again, I might live a little differently, listen a little closer, look a little further, love a little harder.