Fifty Years

I remember the day. It was fifty years ago, yesterday. John Glenn was launched into space and orbited the earth in a Mercury capsule. I was living in Dallas, driving towards Grapevine in my streamlined 1959 Chevrolet (which I had bought new for $1995), listening to the radio as it relayed the voice of the astronaut hurling around the earth.
It was a great day for our country, because the Soviet Union had already put a satellite into orbit and had sent two cosmonauts up there. We were behind in the race to put a man on the moon in that decade. John Glenn’s flight lifted the spirits of the nation, and he was welcomed home with a ticker tape parade in New York City.
Today, John Glenn is 90 years old, still active and alert. Since that wonderful day in 1962, he has served four terms as a United States Senator from Ohio and at age 77 went back into space as an astronaut.
When I saw the news article about the anniversary, the word, “FIFTY,” jumped out at me. Can it be? Fifty years? Yep, there’s no denying the fact. “Time” seems to fly at a fantastic rate of speed. Perhaps we should let this realization spur us to make the most of every minute we have. I am reminded of the words of Psalm 90:10, “As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty years, Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; For soon it is gone and we fly away” (NASB). That verse makes me think of another: “..you do not..know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:14-15 NIV). Words to live by–right?