Tomorrow, I’ll begin a thousand mile drive from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Fayetteville, North Carolina. I’m moving my daughter to be with her husband at Fort Bragg where he’s about to begin training for Army Special Forces. Two weeks ago, I performed their wedding ceremony and took this picture right after I gave my son-in-law permission to kiss his bride.

This will be the second time I’ll move a daughter a thousand miles to be with her military husband. The first time was four years ago when I moved my oldest daughter to Washington, D.C. Now she and her husband live in southern California near Camp Pendleton. He was deployed earlier this week.

Yesterday, my family and I met the Iraqi grad student we’ve invited to live with us while he studies computer engineering at the University of Arkansas. He left behind a wife and seven month old daughter. He won’t see them again until next October at the earliest.

Leaving. Goodbyes. Separation.

I don’t like any of it.

I love being together and I love the anticipation of being together.

But the being together is always over so quickly. Doesn’t matter if it’s a few days or twenty years–it’s over before I know it.

It’s just part of life though.

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”

Abram, who later became Abraham, was the father of the nation of Israel, but he was a real guy and leaving wasn’t any easier for him than it is for me. Or you.

It’s still the beginning of a new year. We’re only five days into it. Do you know someone who will be leaving soon? A family member? A friend? Maybe it’s you who’s leaving…for a week-long business trip, for another semester at school or maybe it’s like my daughter–to start her own family.

Whether you have a few days or a few years left with someone–make it count.

Don’t give all your energy to your work.

So there are dishes in the sink–they can wait.

There are 8,760 hours in a year. As I write this, 117 are already gone. What will you do to make the most of the 8,643 that are left?