The Best Time of Your Life

The Best Time of Your Life
by Marilyn Mackenzie


What do you remember as the best time of your life? Was it when you hit your first home run? Or discovered love for the first time? Or the satisfaction that you received from writing something and knowing that it touched the lives of others in some magical way?

Many of us tend to remember our youth as the best time of our lives, especially as we gaze carefully into mirrors that we pass. Perhaps we sneak a glance and see for an instant what others might be seeing - that there is hint of gray peeking out at our temples or that there is just a hint of a wrinkle at the corner of our mouths. That older image of ourselves quickly passes, though, and staring at us through the looking glass is still the essence of our youth. Older and wiser eyes gaze into mirrors reflecting back a youthful time.

But memories fade and cover over the parts of our youth that were painful. Surely, we wouldn't want to really return to those youthful days. If we were truly able enter a time machine and soar back to those days of our youth, would we return there with the wisdom and truths that only experience and years of seeking and finding have given us? Or would we return to that place with the same innocence we had then, to have to re-learn and hurt and discover all over again? Would any of us want that?

What, then, was the best time of your life? It isn't a "was". It is! It's today, the beginning of a new future. The cliches tells us that today is the beginning of the rest of our lives, or that today is a new canvas just waiting for the artist to begin his work of art. It's true! What will your do with this new day?

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To My Childhood Sweetheart
The Best Time of Your Life
by Marilyn Mackenzie


What do you remember
As the best time of your life?

Remember when you were in college
And you wrote all those love letters
Confessing your undying love?

Remember the silly things we did,
Walking hand-in-hand on New Year's Eve
Not noticing the blizzard?

Why did we have to stop being crazy?
Why did we follow all the rules
Of growing old?

Don't you remember being young and carefree
As the best time of your life?

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To My New Love Yet Undiscovered
I Feel
by Marilyn Mackenzie


With you I feel happiness
In a world that is rather sad

With you I see sunlight
Peaking shyly through dark clouds

With you I hear music
Whistling gently through the trees

With you I see beauty
In a world that cannot see

We're growing and learning
Both together and alone

We're seeking and finding
What has been there all along

Day's dawn seems brighter
Than it ever has before

And with you I feel wonderful
I feel, therefore I am


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Ah, but the story continues. Perhaps the best time of our lives is not our youth, which we remember in a filtered fashion. Perhaps, too, the best time of our lives is not today, for today is gone in a short twenty-four hours with tomorrow rushing in, in its wake.

What then is the best time of our lives? The best time wasn't and isn't but it is yet to be. Robert Browning said, "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be." Our past is forever etched and cannot be changed, except by our diminishing memories of it.

The present is a wonderful gift to be used, enjoyed and shared with those around us, but it is a fleeting moment. The future is something over which we can have some control. We can pray for God's guidance through it and plan for it, or just suddenly find ourselves in the midst of it, but the future certainly can be the best time of our lives! It can be a glorious time, especially, if you know and remember what a special and unique child of God you are, and you are willing to share His love with those around you. Here's to futures - yours and mine - the best times of our lives!