My Pride model, that is. I keep chipping away at the Pride of Baltimore and the Fair American (admiralty style model of a 1780, 18 gun schooner man of war), but I laid the keel for the Pride in October, 2004, and started the Fair American in August, 2005. I must also admit that I have an untouched kit of the USS Constitution that is (was?) to represent the epitome of my model-making retirement career.

The problem is that I have changed my mind about what I want to do with the years left to me. My vision of retirement years filled with making sawdust and chips for several hours every day has vaporized.

I updated the Pride page and here is what the dusty old Pride looks like today.

So what happened to my vision of a retirement with sawdust on my eyebrows and chips in my pocket? Well, it’s like this:

I have long had the practice in my morning prayers of thanking my Maker for bringing me to the beginning of a fresh and unspotted new day, which I still do, but one fine morning it dawned on me that the number of days between now and my last day on this earth is a finite number. I picture God with a little sack with my name on it filled with my remaining days. Each morning He reaches in, pulls out a day and gives it to me. It stands to reason that there will come a day when He reaches in and the sack is empty. He will just reach down and pluck me up, instead.

I have no problem with that, but it occurred to me that it might make a difference to Him how I have been spending my time as my sack full of days was getting lighter. Making sawdust most of the time just might not cut it. I decided that I would rather be found doing His work in church, neighborhood and family when He reaches down (or over or up as the case may be) for me. I’ll still spend time in the model shipyard, but it won’t be my first priority.

Dave, waxing spiritual this evening.