It seems as though I’d forgotten how much work it entailed to build a start-up business and I was half kidding and half serious when I remarked to one of our employees yesterday that if I’d remembered how difficult it was to found a business, I probably would’ve never begun the Honey Lake Plantation Resort project. I told her I was an old man now and all of the hard work and 18 hour days were tougher on me than when I was a young man starting up all of those other businesses.
Later that day I learned that one of the best friends that I’ve ever had died of prostate cancer. He was my partner in my very first business and it was shocking to hear the news. We both worked long and hard during those difficult early start-up days, and together we built that first company into the number one company of its kind in the country. We invented numerous innovative high quality products, conducted huge trade shows together, forged a tremendously successful magazine, and revolutionized our industry.
As I reflect on this today I’m motivated and encouraged. I remember many candid conversations with my buddy about some of the long hours that we worked and the difficulties that we faced and we just laughed them off. We kept our eyes on the goal line and didn’t focus on the distractions and we achieved significant accomplishments and had a “ton of fun” together in the process.
In the end we built several legacy companies which still stand, and to this very day it’s fun to reflect back upon them and remember those early infancy days when we struggled mightily to get them going. Through raw determination we fought our way through the problems and beat them into something grand.
He was a family man who loved the Lord and a gifted artist with amazing talent and now he’s in heaven. He fought his way through the perils of this fleshly life remaining true to his Savior through thick and thin and now he has at long last achieved everlasting victory and will bask in the presence of Almighty God and His amazing grace forever.
My friend had ten years on me and his passing made my own death seem more real, eminent, and even urgent. It seems that each year more and more of my friends are going on to be with the Lord and it’s only a matter of time until I head through that valley myself and leave that shadow of death and this old world behind me forever.
This knowledge makes me all the more determined not to waste time feeling sorry for myself for working hard. In fact I’m thankful that I’ve been afforded more time to accomplish something for the Lord and appreciate whatever remains of this truly once in a lifetime…(err… once in an eternity)…opportunity.
I’m going to enjoy it while I can.
Keep your head high today and relish your experiences while there is still some time afforded to you…Enjoy breathing the air, look up at the sky, smell the flowers, enjoy your family, break bread with friends, go to Sunday school, and appreciate those turkeys gobbling, (the ones with feathers and without).
James 4:14
Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes