Finishing Well in the Dash

When I was a child, I loved a poem called "The Dash," by Linda Ellis.  It is both lyrical and profound in pointing out that in the end, the years of our lives will be efficiently reduced to a short epitaph on a stone, together with a two numbers--the years of our birth and death--separated by a dash.  Ellis notes that the "dash represents all the time that [we] spent alive on Earth," and only those who loved us will "know what that little line is worth."   I love the reminder that I'm living the dash now, forming it with each day's experiences and choices.  

I'm also living another kind of dash, a spiritual race that God established for me long ago.  Hebrews 12:1-2 reads:

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

A law school classmate of mine, with whom I used to attend church, passed away on Ash Wednesday this past week.  He was in his early 30s, and his death was most unexpected, the result of a freak accident that left him in flagging health for two months before God finally called him home.  I know he rests with Jesus now.  His dash is done.

His passing into the next life has gotten me thinking deeply about my own dash.  As I have seen multiple times before and most recently this past week, it could end abruptly, much sooner than expected.  But if God were to call me home today, might I even dare to hope that God would look on me and say, "You finished well"?  I can't answer that question with confidence.  But I'd like to work toward that result.  At the end of my life, whenever that may be, I want to have finished well.  And since I don't know when my time will come, I'd like to live each day, truly, as if it were my last.  Finishing well over the course of years requires finishing well in each and every day. 

Even as I type this, I sense an inner Sarah, laughing in doubt.  I sense an inner Eve, blaming failure on temptation.  I sense an inner Moses, trembling in inadequacy.  But there is hope for even me:  God redeemed each one and used each one to bring forth life and to tell the goodness of who He is and what He does.  May He do the same in me as I seek to finish well in my dash.