Remember Your Creator
By Ryan Dawson
This past week, I sat in a sterile and bleak hospital room, watching my father decline before my eyes. His once-steady hands, the same hands that taught me how to work with wood, and ride a bike now tremble under the weight of Parkinson’s disease. His voice shaky and weak, and his mind shifting from lucid clarity in one moment, to rambling confusion in the next. He is now confined to a wheelchair and hospital bed, and he needs help with everything—eating, dressing, and bathing. This is the same man who cycled across Canada in his 40’s and competed in the Florida Senior State Games in his 70’s. Life has narrowed in the cruellest way, and time has done what time always does. It marches forward with indiscriminate certainty.
As my older sister and I sat with Dad, holding his hand, I found myself returning to a passage that’s been echoing in my heart lately: "Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honour him in your youth before you grow old and say, 'Life is not pleasant anymore.'" Ecclesiastes 12:1 (NLT)
In Ecclesiastes 12:1-7, King Solomon, poetically traces the slow fading of human strength, comparing the aging process to a crumbling house — the trembling keepers, the dimming windows, the grinding halt of daily routine. It’s a strikingly honest portrait of what we try so hard to ignore: our bodies, these earthly tents, are temporary. I’m learning that more and more in these days.
And yet, Solomon’s point isn’t despair. It’s urgency. “Remember your Creator… before…” Before our body breaks down. Before our memory fades. Before we meet our God, who gave us breath.
As we sat there with our father, listened to a worship song and then prayed together, I didn’t just see the slow toll of an awful disease. I saw a man who remembered His Creator. In the middle of his fragility, he is filled with a quiet strength that doesn’t come from this world. Although his body is failing, his faith is growing. He can’t do what he used to, but he is trusting in God more and more, and he is putting his hope in God’s promises for this life and the next. I marvel at this because my father came to faith later in life, but I see him finishing well.
His life, like all of ours, is a flicker. But that flicker matters. Every breath is a gift and a chance to reflect the light of eternity. As the people of God, we are not called to deny aging or sorrow or even death. We are called to see them clearly and to live in a way that stretches our hearts toward home — not the home with bricks and roofs, but the eternal one where Christ Himself is the light.
So, while I grieve what my father is losing, I thank God for what he is gaining: a heart of faith, a testimony of endurance, and a life that reminds me that our hope isn’t here. It never was.
May we all live the days we’re given with the same clarity. Remember your Creator now. Whether you’re young and full of energy or weary and slowing down — honour God. Love deeply. Serve faithfully. Make the most of each day and set your eyes on what cannot decay. Because the day is coming when the “silver cord will snap and the golden bowl will break” (Ecclesiastes 12:6) and on that day, may we be found clinging not to what fades, but to the One who never will.
With hope and gratitude, Ryan
This past week, I sat in a sterile and bleak hospital room, watching my father decline before my eyes. His once-steady hands, the same hands that taught me how to work with wood, and ride a bike now tremble under the weight of Parkinson’s disease. His voice shaky and weak, and his mind shifting from lucid clarity in one moment, to rambling confusion in the next. He is now confined to a wheelchair and hospital bed, and he needs help with everything—eating, dressing, and bathing. This is the same man who cycled across Canada in his 40’s and competed in the Florida Senior State Games in his 70’s. Life has narrowed in the cruellest way, and time has done what time always does. It marches forward with indiscriminate certainty.
As my older sister and I sat with Dad, holding his hand, I found myself returning to a passage that’s been echoing in my heart lately: "Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honour him in your youth before you grow old and say, 'Life is not pleasant anymore.'" Ecclesiastes 12:1 (NLT)
In Ecclesiastes 12:1-7, King Solomon, poetically traces the slow fading of human strength, comparing the aging process to a crumbling house — the trembling keepers, the dimming windows, the grinding halt of daily routine. It’s a strikingly honest portrait of what we try so hard to ignore: our bodies, these earthly tents, are temporary. I’m learning that more and more in these days.
And yet, Solomon’s point isn’t despair. It’s urgency. “Remember your Creator… before…” Before our body breaks down. Before our memory fades. Before we meet our God, who gave us breath.
As we sat there with our father, listened to a worship song and then prayed together, I didn’t just see the slow toll of an awful disease. I saw a man who remembered His Creator. In the middle of his fragility, he is filled with a quiet strength that doesn’t come from this world. Although his body is failing, his faith is growing. He can’t do what he used to, but he is trusting in God more and more, and he is putting his hope in God’s promises for this life and the next. I marvel at this because my father came to faith later in life, but I see him finishing well.
His life, like all of ours, is a flicker. But that flicker matters. Every breath is a gift and a chance to reflect the light of eternity. As the people of God, we are not called to deny aging or sorrow or even death. We are called to see them clearly and to live in a way that stretches our hearts toward home — not the home with bricks and roofs, but the eternal one where Christ Himself is the light.
So, while I grieve what my father is losing, I thank God for what he is gaining: a heart of faith, a testimony of endurance, and a life that reminds me that our hope isn’t here. It never was.
May we all live the days we’re given with the same clarity. Remember your Creator now. Whether you’re young and full of energy or weary and slowing down — honour God. Love deeply. Serve faithfully. Make the most of each day and set your eyes on what cannot decay. Because the day is coming when the “silver cord will snap and the golden bowl will break” (Ecclesiastes 12:6) and on that day, may we be found clinging not to what fades, but to the One who never will.
With hope and gratitude, Ryan