Roger Miller wrote the love song but for most people around my age it's Donny Osmond whom we remember singing it. It was titled 'The Twelfth of Never' and the whole idea was that the date of the twelfth of Never would be when the writer would stop loving his girlfriend, which of course meant never. I hated the song, it was just far too slushy for a seventeen year old, still coming to terms with spots, hair dryers and deodorant and for whom, after shave lotion was a bit of a misnomer.Neverland is a different thing altogether. It is a dream world that lives in the minds of our young where people no longer get any older and live as children for ever, a sort of immortality and everything they wish for ends up in that fantasy world. Many times, all of us have longed to visit that world and most of us probably did some nights while we slept but the truth is we never did get to stay there for ever and the passage of time eventually took away our dreams and closed the door on Neverland for ever.
I suppose life is a mixture of all the things which happen that you never expect and all the other things that you plan never to do. I never expected that I would be teaching in the primary school, on my doorstep, where I learned to read and write and I really never expected that I would be working there with my wife. I never thought that my present home would be right in the spot where an orchard once stood and where I often played in the evenings and I never imagined that two young lads would be running over the same grass that I used to tread as a child. And though I knew my hair would probably fall out some day, I never expected it to go white long before it waved goodbye and it's still waving though less wavy than it once was. I never thought that the years between twenty and fifty could go so fast and I never realised how quickly twenty five years of marriage could pass nor how quickly two young boys would leave childhood behind and grow into young men. When I was young I never thought about my parents getting old and never considered how much they gave to me that money could never buy and I suppose when they did eventually reach their senior years, I had grown accustomed to seeing them ageing but I never expected them both to pass away in a short space of time. And I guess we never really knew how our boys would grow up but I think we never realised just how much God was in control of everything and I never stop thanking Him for blessing us through our children.
I never really planned to be a teacher when I was younger but since I became one, I never really thought about an alternative career. There are other things that I never plan to do either. I'll probably never bungee jump, mountain climb, complete a marathon, go on a cruise, swim with dolphins, learn a new language, drink Guinness, go into space, buy a cow, hire a boat, ride a horse or buy a Donny Osmond album. But I can't say for certain because I could change my mind, though I'd probably need to drink a lot of Guinness before I'd contemplate doing any of them!
I never really thought that I would be writing a blog either but maybe I never realised how many people might just come across it sometime and maybe would be persuaded to think about their spirituality through something they would read. You know it really doesn't matter whether a reader agrees or not with what I write every day, but if it makes them think about God, maybe they'll just explore Him a bit more and find the answers that only He can provide. But a word of warning. I'm probably never going to live until one hundred and one, the age of Buster in last week's London Marathon. In fact, I'll never know how long I have left but I do know that many people never intend to leave their salvation until they're really old, it's just that one day merges into the next and they never get around to sorting it out. Unfortunately, some never get the opportunity. Jesus says a couple of very interesting things about the word never. 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.' Also He says 'Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.' And when he proclaims 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty,' I thin kit's time we sat up and took notice. May you consider your relationship with God today and never have to hear those words on the last day, 'I never knew you.'
