Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Our church just finished a series studying the book of Ecclesiastes. It has been a sobering and encouraging endeavor. I have learned much in the process. I am grateful for a church where God’s Word is cherished–all 66 books of the Bible–without exception. Our pastor recommended the book, Living Life Backwards – How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us To Live In Light Of The End, by David Gibson. I find this concept fascinating…

Keeping the end in mind shapes how we live our lives in the here and now. Living life backward means taking the one thing in our future that is certain–death–and letting that inform our journey before we get there. (from back cover)

I heard another say it this way.

Think of what you want your life remembered by at your funeral. Then let your choices today help you get there.

Powerful isn’t it? I have yet to read the book, but I will and I encourage you to consider it too.

In light of this being our church’s focus this summer, imagine my surprise when I heard Josh Groban and Jennifer Nettles duet playing on the radio. It’s been out for awhile, but I hadn’t heard it before. It’s titled, 99 Years Like That. It takes this idea of living life backwards and applies it to marriage.

Josh shares on You Tube that he wrote this song thinking of his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.

No matter where you are in your marriage today, how do you hope it will end? What choices can you make today to help you both reach your goal? It’s being intentional every day we have together. This may sound exhausting. Anything worth doing is worth giving it our all. Isn’t our marriage worth that? I imagine your vows, like ours, included something to that effect. How easily we forget what we hoped for at the beginning. I pray this song will reignite a commitment to do the work to help us all end well. But more than this, may it infuse a fresh joy in the love we have been given, and may we celebrate it in the everyday moments by the way we treat each other.

99 Years Like That

(begin the video below and read the lyrics as Josh and Jennifer sing)

Boy meets girl and the world stops turning
She makes him forget all the rules he was learning
They give a toast to the ones who never stop hoping
With not much to lean and eyes wide open
And they look up high and wonder what the future’s gonna hold

Will we look back down on 99 years of a wonderful life?
Where we laughed till we cried and
our love grew stronger with every fight
There’ll be a thousand moments for you to say “I told you”
And a million more for us to say “I love you”
So let’s look forward to you and I looking back
At 99 years like that, at 99 years like that

They build a house of love in the face of worry
But life has a way of rewriting the story
There were times when it looked like nothing could save them
And there were times when it looked like nothing could break them
They keep promising each other what the future’s gonna hold

Will we look back down on 99 years of a wonderful life?
Where we laughed and we cried and
our love grew stronger with every fight
There’ll be a thousand moments for you to say “I told you”
And a million more for us to say “I love you”
So let’s look forward to you and I looking back
To 99 years

Of nothing unspoken
Live every day hoping
That when we feel broken
Our scars make us golden
Still choose you and I

Will we look back down on 99 years of a wonderful life?
Where we laughed till we cried and
our love was stronger with every fight
There’ll be a thousand moments for you to say “I told you”
And a million more for us to say “I love you”
So let’s look forward to you and I looking back
At 99 years like that
Oh, at 99 years like that
At 99 years like that