Of Graveyards and Dashes

This fact from my life feels like I should have used it in the game “2 Truths and a Lie” where a person states three facts about themselves, two of which are true, and one of which is a lie, and participants try to guess what is true and what is a lie. One fact I could include in the game: I enjoy visiting graveyards. Spoiler alert: it’s true. 

I have visited many graveyards around the world where I knew not one person buried there. My connections to the place I visited? My common humanity with the people buried there is one connection. My impending reality that one day my bones, too, will be placed in a similar place is another. 

A grounding takes place, if you will, as I walk through the lanes of burial plots, reading memorial quotes and epitaphs, reading birth dates and death dates with that dash in the middle. The dash. Eerily, I have considered how the lifespan of a soul is reduced down to a dash on those stones. It is all sobering, every time. It always feels like I’m walking on holy ground. 

When I ponder how visiting graveyards is something I enjoy, I always think about the verse in Ecclesiastes about how it is better to be in the house of the mourning than the house of the feasting and that the living should take it to heart (Ecclesiastes 7:2). Something happens every time I visit a graveyard; life, somehow, more than death, comes back into perspective for me.

I went to a few graveyards in the UK last year with my friend. What struck me as I saw some ancient headstones is how impermanent life is. My friend and I talked about why we even worry about tomorrow because tomorrow is not even promised. 

The pace of life I have lived, and the energy I have expended is dizzying even for me when I reflect upon it. God has led me on a life journey full of twists and turns and hills and valleys. Lately, as I have spent the past few years rebuilding some of that energy after dealing with burn out and health issues, I think about my visits to the graveyards, and the sober feeling that remains from those times helps me lean into this dash of time between my birth and death date. The reason? I think these visits are one way God has taught me to number my days correctly and gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90).

I have this sneaking suspicion, due to being familiar with the heart of God, that He has taken me out of different parts of my life to lead me into things bigger and better than my ideas of what the future looks like. Right now, I mostly hear Him calling me to His heart.  Maybe being in the in-between times of our lives is so we can remember to hide behind the cleft of the rock and have the Almighty God pass by us and hear Him whisper His plans, His dreams, His way.

Verses from this song came to mind: 

All the way my Savior leads me

Oh, the fullness of His grace!

Perfect rest to me is promised

In my Father’s blest embrace.

When my spirit, clothed immortal,

Wings its flight to realms of day,

This my song through endless ages:

Jesus led me all the way.

Click this link to listen on YouTube: All The Way My Savior Leads Me

May we allow God to teach us to number our days correctly, and may this be the main epitaph of our lives: Jesus led us all the way. 

Notes in the Margins: 

How is God teaching you to number your days and gain a heart of wisdom?

Ask God what He wants you to know and take time to listen to what He says.

Based on what He wants you to know, ask God what He wants you to do.