Nice illustration. Very near to what I've been thinking recently. We tend 
to worry or be concerned of things today as if we need to live them for 
eternity. Thanks to Chirst, all this garbage from earth will be gone and 
we'll life in bliss in the presence of God.

Brad


Brad

At 10:04 AM 11/28/2007, you wrote:
>Marbles!!!!
>
>
>The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the 
>quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's
>the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours
>of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.
>
>A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of 
>coffee
>in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical 
>Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand 
>you from time to time. Let me tell you about it.
>
>I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in 
>order
>to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way,I came
>across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden 
>voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting 
>business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about 'a 
>thousand  marbles.' I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had 
>to say.
>
>'Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they 
>pay you
>well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so 
>much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy 
>hours a week to make ends meet. It's too bad you missed your daughter's 
>dance recital' he continued. 'Let me tell you something that has helped me 
>keep my own priorities.' And that's when he began to explain his theory of 
>a 'thousand  marbles.'
>
>'You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average 
>person lives
>about seventy-five years I know, some live more and some live less, but 
>on  average, folks live about seventy-five years.'
>
>'Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the 
>number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.
>
>   Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the important part. It took me 
> until I
>was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail', he went 
>on, 'and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred 
>Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only 
>had about a thousand of them left to enjoy. So I went to a toy store and 
>bought every single marble they had.
>
>I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I 
>took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right 
>here in the shack next to my gear.'
>
>'Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it 
>away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the 
>really  important things in life.'
>
>'There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to 
>help get your priorities straight.'
>
>'Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign off with you and take my 
>lovely
>wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of 
>the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday then I have 
>been given a
>little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.'
>
>'It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, 
>and I
>hope to meet you again here on the band. This is a 75 Year old Man,
>K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!'
>
>You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I 
>guess
>he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the
>antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to 
>work on the next club newsletter.
>
>Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. 'C'mon honey, 
>I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast.' 'What brought this on' she 
>asked with a smile.' 'Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we
>spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can we stop at a
>
>toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles.'



Brad Dunse
http://www.braddunsemusic.com

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