Plenty of Time

Me, trying to decide on a topic for my column: "Jonah, how has God made a difference in your life this week?"

Pragmatic nine-year-old son, after a moment's thought: "Well, it's only the second day of the week...He still has time."

That kid cracks me up.  I can't figure out when he went from the Trying to be Funny but Not Succeeding stage to this child who is legitimately witty, making me giggle on a regular basis.

Then again, it's no wonder I haven't noticed the change in him.  He's a third child.

Anyone else out there have three kids?  With your first, you try to get it all right.  Oh my gosh, the stack of baby books that I read with a glazed-eyed fervor...I haaaated those books.  They had so many RULES to follow, and they always told me all the things I was doing wrong!

Nevertheless, that sonnyboy of mine sure got the attention as I tried my best to be The Most Awesome Mom Ever.  I filled in baby books.  I took pictures.  I videotaped his first word.  (It was "bus," by the way.)  I read him three stories every night, doing all the voices. I carefully filled his new Bob the Builder lunch box with with a sandwich cut into a fun shape and a special hand-written note every day, so he could know how special he was to me.

The second child gets to escape a lot of the mistakes you made the first time around. But there's a little less time for number two. I have a few snapshots of my middle-child daughter's enormous little-girl grin, but I couldn't tell you her first word.  She got pre-packaged chips and fruit cups in her hand-me-down lunch box with the occasional note scrawled on a napkin reminding her to bring home her snowpants. And she never learned by heart the words to Goodnight Moon.

And then comes number three.  Our third arrived several years after his sister, when the older two were already off and running.  Jonah was relegated to accessory status, carted on my hip to preschool field trips and little league games.  I think maybe his big brother read him stories sometimes, and surely we have a picture of him around somewhere. And lunches?  Forgot the lunchbox. The third kid gets hot lunch. Even on hot dog day.

Since then, life has gotten ever busier.  Band practice, driving lessons, orthodontist visits . . . life revolves around the big ones.  And, as always, Jonah tags along for the ride, going wherever we go because he doesn't have a choice.

He's a part of our family life, but he's always on the fringes of it.  It's not that I forget about him.  It's just that I sort of . . . forget.  About him. Sometimes.

Jonah is pretty awesome about understanding his third-child role.  Really, he's amazing. Never complaining about being the little one, he keeps his head up, accepts what he's given, and waits in unhurried expectation for whatever good might be coming his way.

But still.  I wish I had done better.

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It's only the second day of the week. God still has time. It was said so simply, but with such confidence. My boy didn't have any big, exciting God-sightings to report.  But he believed, no matter how unremarkable the present might be, that there was something special in store for him. And he was okay with waiting for it.

How has God made a difference in our lives?  I really like Jonah's way of looking at it.  There's still time.

It makes me think of being a not-always-great mom. And it reminds me that my kids will wait cheerfully and patiently while God keeps nudging me toward getting it right.

It makes me think of how God will keep working in my life to help me smooth out my rough spots and become more like Him.

Simplicity and acceptance and peace.  Because the only thing that really matters, the Thing that makes all the difference in the world, has already been taken care of.  The cross has given us eternity. As for the rest - well, God can handle that.  He's got it under control.

That fourth-grader reply was so simple.  I almost corrected him.  I almost reminded him about how God is a part of every moment of our lives in so many little ways, and there is never a day without Him.  But in that moment it was so much more fun to laugh, enjoy my boy, and let my heart send up a thank You for this week's life lesson.

A little shrug, a little head tilt - everything's not the way it seems it should be?  Eh.  It's early.  God still has time.

First published in The Alpena News, September 19, 2015.

It's About Time

"But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God. My times are in your hands.'" Psalm 31:14-15a

The trouble with summer is that it goes so quickly.

In early June its possibilities seem endless. Leisurely afternoons at the beach. Campfires in the back yard. Finally cleaning out the shed and digging up the overgrown perennials in the garden. Kayak rides and quiet conversation. Drives in the country. Playing catch at the park. Bike rides. Long walks with the dog. In early June, it all seems possible.

And then time sweeps in with her long arms and snatches the days out from under your feet and you land with a bump in late September. Suddenly you're putting your vacation photos on your screen saver and pruning your mums and shopping for back to school supplies and wondering what happened to your Junetime dreams.

It is tempting to think of time as a solid. Twenty four hours in a day, seven days in a week, 31 million-plus seconds in a year. Something that can be counted is something that ought to be tangible. One ought to be able to hang on to each of those 31 million seconds and make them matter.

But there is nothing less in our control than time. The complete contrarian, it saunters when it should run and flits forward when we most want to hold it back. It is relentless, unmerciful, taunting as a will-o-the-wisp and twice as agile.

Here at the twilight of summer, standing looking wonderingly back at the season that has slipped away, I'm a little afraid to turn around and face what is coming next. Will it, too, skitter away from me, giggling with mischief as it goes?

Of course it will. Football games and apple cider will give way to shovels and mittens in the catch of a breath, and I will once again be left wobbling like a Weeble and trying to figure out what just happened.

Time, oh precious time . . . if only I could hold thee more tightly and bend thee to my bidding!

How humbling it is, and how heartbreaking sometimes, to submit the inevitability that is Time.

And yet...

We are not alone in time. It rushes around us, whooshing in our ears, making a day into a moment and a moment into a lifetime, but we do not stand in the storm by ourselves.

Through all the days made too short by their busyness, in all the hours that stretch on beyond endurance, there is by our side One who is bigger than time.

Our big God, who alone is outside of time, entered time in the person of His Son. He didn't leave us alone to flounder in a whooshy, tippy-time world but showed us in the biggest way He could that we are loved, that He is for us and not against us, that the Maker of time itself is on our side.

Wrapped in the comfort of not-aloneness, we see our zippy moments and our crawly hours and our very lives very differently. Time, with all its erratic eccentricities, becomes a gift to enjoy and savor. And our place in that time gains a whole new meaning.

When the to-do list gets longer instead of shorter and the day is full of too few hours, we can give thanks for the blessing of busyness and for the hope of tomorrow. When we are willing the minutes to pass more quickly, we can lean on the One who loves us and who spends His time by our side, ready to hear our hearts.

We cannot hold time. Instead, our time is in God's hands . . . the biggest, safest, most loving place it could be. With the inevitability of God's presence in every moment in our lives, our days are blessed and a blessing - all 31 million seconds a year.