Crocodile Dundee says that the Aborigines laugh at the white man who says he owns the land because the land was there before and will be there long after the supposed owners will be lost to memory. I think about that quote when I watch people and realize how much effort goes into being important, powerful, remembered, and more along the same lines. People want to be precious, the kind of precious that make others notice now and remember long after they are gone.

I had a friend I’ll call Ralph because I don’t know any Ralphs. I met him in junior high school, through high school and beyond. He grew up in a family of boys who all grew up and went their different ways disappearing as drops in the ocean of life. Ralph had stories, tons of them, but none were the kind of stories told on stage, reported in the news, or celebrated by nations. He entered the Vietnam war, lost friends, fought face to face with an enemy, was wounded and came home – different.

I remember his wife calling me to the rescue. He had gone to one of the new Vietnam movies. I found him in the theater. I watched his face as he watched the movie and learned that there was a kind of horror that was beyond my imagination. He had the nightmares, and some of the undergirding cheerfulness of his life had been killed. He roamed through careers and marriages. My last connection was a picture of him playing in a small river in Thailand with his new wife and child. Then he was gone. Where are those stories now. Where did he measure on the precious scale to those who knew him, were around him, or simply shared the planet with him. He was one drop in an ocean of drops.

There is drama in taking any person’s timeline and examining it. There seems to be some moments that are more precious than others, more memorable, more important, but none of those moments would exist without the supporting moments that led up to it and held it in place. Those moments, those people that exist outside the spotlight, might be the most important because they are the bulwark that provide and establish. The overlooked, while being drowned in invisibility, are often the context needed for the appreciated to shine. WWII was fought by millions who destroyed. Many millions more were killed by intent or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time However, only some, the very few, events or people are known or remembered. Each moment and each person in each moment was/is precious. How do we reconcile these thoughts? I consider the following.

I had a prayer experience (I’ll explain later) in which I imagined (also to be explained later) that the Lord was teaching me a lesson. I had a dog named Sam who had been my only friend during some of the worst times of my life at the time of this experience. I imagined the Lord saying, ” Who will weep when Sam dies? The nations? The country? The region? The state? The county? The city? Who will mourn?” I said, “I will mourn because I have invested my life and love in him.” The Lord followed with the same questions started with, “Who will weep when you die?” Followed by the same list from nations to city. I indicated that only those who love me will weep. He responded, “I will weep over you as I did over Lazarus because I have invested My life and love in you and know all that you have suffered and experienced.”

The prayer experience gave me a new insight into faith. Humans get lost in doctrine, but God speaks relationship. Jesus knew every moment of Ralph’s life. Ralph was precious because the love of Jesus made him precious. Ralph was not alone, isolated nor lost when he passed because the one who loved him most was there with him.

I wander through the Bible and find chapters upon chapters of names and names connected to family trees. The Bible is full of names written by the One who knows all names in all times. It is God who gives value by investing His love. God’s love makes each person precious. A drop in an ocean of drops may get lost to us, but is not lost to God. Each drop is known. Each person is precious.