Many years ago, I was waiting for my car to have an oil change. During times like this, you read anything to pass the time. On the table was a complimentary real estate magazine, and I was flipping through its property photos. I noticed a 5,499-acre parcel with a 100-year-old mansion. The price was well under $500,000.
I had once lived in a house on about 40 acres, provided by the ministry I served, and I loved it. Deer would come close to my front porch, and I even had a bobcat on the property—fun to watch from afar, but not when it circled the hot tub while you were alone late at night.
I was on the phone with friends, telling them about this huge parcel, and as we talked, I started seeing the potential for a Positive Christianity Retreat Center. This was long before Hope Hill existed.
One friend said, “You have to look into this—it’s only $90 an acre, with a mansion thrown in.”
In my mind, I had already listed my current house for sale, along with all my worldly belongings, to pay for this.
The magazine said the land was “improved” property. I did not know what that meant—it could mean it had just been mowed or that utilities were already in. I was not buying just “land,” I was buying “new and improved” land. Any child of the 1950s responds favorably to ads that tout “new and improved.”
I imagined myself on my tractor in a three-piece suit, just like Oliver Wendell Douglas on Green Acres. The theme song still plays in my mind as I write this. I wish it would stop.
After talking with several others, I was vibrating with excitement over this property.
$90 an acre with a mansion!
You should have seen me when I called the realtor.
“I’m interested in the 5,499-acre parcel with the mansion,” I said.
“What? We don’t have anything like that,” she replied.
“I’m looking at it right here in the ad,” I said.
She put me on speakerphone so the other realtors could help with the search. She laughed and kept laughing.
“Put on your glasses,” she said. “It’s NOT 5 comma 499—it’s five period 499.”
In other words, 5½ acres. She was still laughing when I hung up.
I later learned that “improved” meant electricity and water were nearby. Another improvement: a plastic tarp now covers the holes in the roof.
It is a lot like life. Life contains commas and periods. A period means an end; a comma means a continuation. Many times, what appears to be the end is just a comma in the road of life—like losing a job, only to find a better one through God’s open doors, or a relationship ending, only to discover the love of your life waiting for you.
Even at a funeral, we realize that what appears to be the end may just be a comma—the journey continues, even if unseen to our human eyes.
And many times, what looks like a comma in life is actually a period. In the middle of our challenges, we may believe they will never end or improve. But many struggles are temporary, not permanent.
It is important to laugh every day, especially at ourselves. Life is too short to take too seriously, or worry and anxiety will play tricks on our minds.
Thank God, life provides both periods and commas in the right proportion for the journey of the soul. God brings Divine order to each day. Life is an adventure to be enjoyed and savored.
I pray you have commas in all your joys and periods in all your challenges.
Also, read the fine print. I have always been a “big picture” person, leaving details to others. On one of our spiritual retreat cruises, a friend gave me a joke lottery ticket. I scratched it off—it said I was a winner. A BIG winner.
I didn’t dare tell my children, thinking they might claim my prize! I called a detail-oriented coworker into my cabin. I told him about the ticket, and he immediately read the fine print: the ticket was only valid if you believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.
Life has fine print—but God does not.
God’s promises are always true. God is not tricky. God can be trusted. And that statement is said with a period.
Christopher Chenoweth, Positive Christianity