There is a time for everything

“There is a time for everything, and a season

for every activity under the heavens:”

Ecclesiastes 3:1 

Memory Lane

One of my favorite things to do during visits to see my mother is to take walks through my hometown. It’s definitely a walk down memory lane. The town that once seemed so big and intimidating now seems small and sleepy. Areas of the town have changed greatly, while others look exactly the same as they did during my childhood.

The baseball field and football stadium where I played are still there, but they seem eerily small. The games I once played are distant memories. Time has erased the specific details of those matchups, but what I do remember are the friendships. I have maintained connections with some, but with most I have not. During that time, friendships felt like they would last forever, but that was simply a season of my life that transitioned into another. Then came college and career, and there were great friendships during those seasons, too.

Intentional Friendships

The ability to establish a network of friends through sports, college, and career seemed effortless and somewhat baked-in. As I find myself entering the fourth quarter of my life, I must be more intentional about fostering friendships—but the positive is that I now have more margin than during any other season of my life.

The Pallbearer Challenge

The premise of the MD5 Pallbearer Challenge is that we should never put our family and loved ones in the dilemma of struggling to name the six men who will lower us into the grave. So go out and be intentional about growing and maintaining the friendships in your life. And you better have more than six because, odds are, you’ll outlive half of them.

"If you go out looking for friends, you will find they are scarce; if you go out to be a friend, you will find them everywhere." — Zig Ziglar

Roger Smithson

MD5 Facilitator