Expiration Dates

We had to dump out a full gallon of milk the other day since it was no longer good. That's never usually an issue at our house as we tend to go through milk fairly quickly, but the expiration date was obviously not accurate. It was a brand new gallon that had an expiry date of August 26th, but it was clearly spoiled. I hated to waste the money (and good milk), but it serves as a reminder that everything comes to an end at some point.

That had me thinking about expiration dates in other areas of our lives too. We obviously all have a life expiration date although it is not necessarily known by us. There are other more short-term areas too: employment venues, some relationships, careers, opportunities, and tough (and good) seasons. While we tend to think of this in only in a negative fashion it might help us to realize the end of something isn't always a detriment to our health. We can learn from how things come to a conclusion and hopefully improve our next season. We can begin to anticipate when those moments will take place and prepare to handle them in a more balanced fashion.

There is no way to completely halt these times, but we can decide to be prepared so that we are not caught unawares and left with a sour taste in our mouths.