Time Stood Still

Time stood still on my watch on the 19th of March at 02:15:24. I had the battery replaced prior to coming over so it is weird that the juice has ran out so quickly. Perhaps age has caught up with watch; it was 7 years ago when I won it at a lucky draw during high school's graduation night. 

Waking up 6 hours later, I wondered what would have happened if time really stood still at 02:15:24. I was sleeping then and the world on the other side of the globe was probably facing certain Monday blues. I obviously have no answer to my own question. However, it further questioned me about what am I doing with my life. Suppose time ended for me then as well, where will I stand when I meet my Creator? Can I be confident that there is nothing in me that will be ashamed as I stand before Him? 

While browsing through the news feed in the book of faces yesterday night, I was informed that a loved one of someone has just passed away. I don't know that person but the knowledge of death had an impact on me: the knowledge that the end has arrived. It is in the face of such an end that most things in life don't matter at all.  I recall sitting in a court room of the Supreme Court when the sentence of the death penalty was read out to the convicted accused. He wasn't dead after the sentence was read out, but those in the court room knew that he was as good as dead; the fact that he was alive then made no difference. Perhaps it is Ecclesiastes working in my mind, for it writes, "better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart." But death in itself is not the real end; it is only an end to the temporal existence in this world. 

That being so, the same question is being asked again: for if death is not the end but merely the closure of the temporal existence here, of which I have to given an account for, what am I doing with my life? Where will I stand when my time in this world has stopped? 

A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.

It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: 

for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. 

Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. 

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof...

Ecclesiastes 7