About a dozen years ago, the late Erma Bombeck wrote a book entitled I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise. That unusual title came from a conversation Ms. Bombeck had with a group of youngsters attending a camp for children living with cancer, and the response of one little chemotherapy patient to the question, “What would you want if you had three wishes?”

To this sick child, these were the important things in life. Her words remind us how precious even the smallest blessings can be when we are faced with the prospect of losing them. Hair seems a trivial matter until suddenly you don’t have any. Boise seems like a dull and distant place until you realize you may never get to go there. Life seems a plentiful commodity until you realize its end is rapidly approaching.

Three wishes, of course, only are granted in fairy tales. But I suppose that if I were to be so blessed, my choices wouldn’t be all that different from that little girl’s.

I want to enjoy with my family the life God has given me.

I want to serve the Lord as long as He has use for me here.

I want to go to heaven.

Sometimes we take for granted the small joys of life with the people we love. Four years ago when Karla was diagnosed with cancer, and I faced for the first time the sobering thought of living without the woman who has shared my entire adult life, I learned a valuable lesson about the tenuous nature of these small joys.

I hope that today, I am less apt to regard these joys frivolously — the electric delight of seeing my daughter return safely home at the end of a school day; of sharing a few moments with my mother on the phone; of planning an anniversary vacation with my wife: “Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity; for that is your portion in life, and in the labor which you perform under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:9). I pray that I always give praise and gratitude to God as the source of these blessings, and that I can enjoy them as long as He wills.

When I think of my work in the kingdom of Christ, there is always so much more to be done — more lessons to be learned and taught, more of God’s wonderful word to be shared, more souls to be exposed to the gospel of salvation, more saints to be edified and encouraged. Like most preachers, I pray often that my labors — humble as they are — somehow are of value to the cause of the Lord. I try to remind myself every day, ”Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

And, like my long-departed brother Paul, I want to spend eternity with my heavenly Father and His dear Son. I pray for the strength to remain steadfast and immovable (1 Corinthians 15:58); to keep pressing toward the goal (Philippians 3:14); to let everything I do be done with courage and love (1 Corinthians 16:13-14); that I do not leave myself disqualified when I have preached to others (1 Corinthians 9:27). I want to stand in the last day and, though I am but an unprofitable servant, enter the joy of my Lord (Luke 17:10; Matthew 25:21).