There will always be something else demanding your attention.
Something unfinished.
Something broken.
Something frightening.
Something you need to figure out.
There will be another headline to read, another message to answer, another bill to pay, another problem waiting for you, another argument happening somewhere in the world.
There will always be something.
And if we are not careful, we can spend our entire lives responding to what is urgent while neglecting what is sacred.
So today, I want to suggest something very simple.
Turn toward someone you love.
And for a moment, release everything else.
Not because everything else doesn’t matter.
Not because the problems of the world have disappeared.
But because this person matters too.
Put down the phone. Stop whatever else you are doing. Look at them. Actually look at them.
And tell them who they are to you.
Not simply, “I love you.”
Tell them why.
Tell them what you see when you look at them.
Tell them something about themselves that you admire.
Tell them something they have given you that perhaps they don’t even realize they gave.
Tell them how your life is different because they have been part of it.
Tell them what their friendship has meant. Their loyalty. Their patience. Their humor. Their kindness. Their strength. Their presence.
Tell them what you would miss.
Tell them what you are grateful for.
Honor the sacred place they occupy in your life.
Because there is something strange about the way human beings love one another.
We can carry enormous feelings for someone and say almost none of them.
We can know that a person has changed our life and never actually tell them.
We can admire someone quietly for years.
We can feel grateful every time they walk through the door and somehow never put that gratitude into words.
We think, They know.
Maybe they do.
But knowing that someone loves you is not quite the same thing as hearing what your existence has meant to them.
And there is an ancient urgency to this.
Psalm 90 contains a remarkable request:
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
There are many ways to understand those words.
But perhaps one of them is simply this:
Remember that there are only so many days.
Not as a threat.
Not as something morbid.
As an instruction about how to live.
Our days are numbered.
Which means our conversations are numbered.
Our dinners together are numbered.
The number of times someone will walk through our front door is numbered.
The mornings when we wake up and they are there.
The ridiculous jokes.
The arguments.
The phone calls.
The ordinary afternoons when nothing particularly important seems to be happening.
All of it is finite.
And strangely, it is often the ordinary things we understand least while we still have them.
We tend to recognize sacred moments retrospectively.
We look backward and realize:
That was one of them.
That afternoon.
That conversation.
That person sitting across the table.
That dog asleep beside us.
That parent whose voice we could once call whenever we wanted.
That friend we assumed would always be there.
That ordinary day we would give almost anything to have back.
Perhaps wisdom is learning to recognize some of those moments before they become memories.
Ecclesiastes says:
“Two are better than one.”
It is such a simple statement that it is easy to pass over.
But the passage continues by explaining why.
When one falls, another can help them rise.
When two lie together, they can keep one another warm.
When someone is attacked, another can stand beside them.
This is not sentimental language about companionship.
It is an acknowledgment of something fundamental about being human:
We carry one another through this life.
Not perfectly.
Sometimes badly.
We disappoint one another. Misunderstand one another. Lose our tempers. Become distracted. Take each other for granted.
And still, somehow, certain people become woven into the structure of our lives.
They become witnesses to us.
They remember versions of us that no longer exist.
They know stories no one else knows.
They have stood beside us through chapters that strangers will never understand.
Some have forgiven us.
Some have challenged us.
Some have made us laugh when nothing was funny.
Some simply stayed.
And perhaps we should say something about that while they are still here to hear it.
We are very good at honoring people after they are gone.
We gather.
We tell stories.
We describe their character.
We speak about what they taught us.
We say how profoundly they affected our lives.
We find photographs.
We write beautiful words.
And sometimes I wonder:
How much of that did they ever hear?
How many people die without ever knowing the full extent of the good they brought into somebody else’s life?
How many beautiful things are spoken at funerals that could have been spoken over coffee?
We cannot change that for yesterday.
But we can change it for today.
So before this day is gone, choose someone.
Your spouse.
Your partner.
Your parent.
Your child.
Your sibling.
Your friend.
Someone who has stood beside you.
Someone whose presence has become so familiar that perhaps you have forgotten how extraordinary it is that, among billions of human beings and all the strange turns a life can take, your paths crossed at all.
And give them a few minutes of your complete attention.
Tell them:
This is who you are to me.
This is what I see in you.
This is something you have given me.
This is why I am grateful that you exist.
And then listen.
Maybe they have something they have been carrying about you too.
For those few minutes, allow the rest of the world to continue without you.
It can.
The news will still be there.
The problems will still be there.
The work will still be there.
Whatever you are worried about will almost certainly wait five minutes.
But this moment will not wait.
It is already passing.
Perhaps that is what it means to number our days.
Not to live frightened by how few there may be.
But to become wise enough to understand the value of the one we are standing inside.
So today, before this day becomes yesterday, turn toward someone you love.
Be completely there.
See them.
Tell them.
Honor the sacred place they occupy in your life.
Do not save the beautiful words for when they can no longer hear them.
Say them now.
Amen.
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