Time

Tuesday, 31 Dec 2002

The clock ticks on...the hours fly by, the days turn into weeks, the months into years, and before we know it, it is the year 2003.
Where has the time gone?
What have we done with it?
Have we used it in the best way possible?

Yesterday I gathered some pictures together. Every year since our first Christmas as husband and wife we have been taking pictures by our tree. The first tree was so tiny we put it on a TV tray in our small living room. It had few ornaments and just one string of lights. I remember that first Christmas morning with just the two of us. It seemed so quiet, and even a little bit uncomfortable. I was used to waking up in a house with four brothers and a sister, Mom and Dad, and usually my Grandmother who had made her German Stoellen. (Not sure of the spelling?) I can't say I liked that German bread much but it was a tradition in our house and it just came with the whole Christmas morning bustle. The fire place would be lit and presents would be handed out. They were numbered...which may seem strange to some but my mom numbered them instead of putting names on them as we got older. Then she could put the presents under the tree before Christmas Eve and we wouldn't know which ones were ours, so shaking and feeling to see what we were getting wasn't possible. We didn't find out our number until Christmas morning!

But, back to the pictures from yesterday. I wanted to place them all in one small album together. One by one I found them in our albums and pulled them out, each Christmas picture by our tree, watching as our family went from just the two of us, to the three, then four then five then four. They showed the boys growing up, all the different homes we lived in from apartments to rental homes to our own homes and then more rental homes overseas. Back to the states and more new homes. There were Christmas Eve pictures where we were all dressed up getting ready to go out somewhere, and there were pictures where we were in sweats or PJ's. There were the lean Christmases and the fat Christmases, both in wealth and weight!! There were the healthy Christmases and the ones where sickness was quite evident. Years and years of pictures. As of this year, twenty-seven pictures to be exact, and when put together in one small album labeled "Our Family", it can be flipped through in less than a minute...

Where has the time gone?
It is oh so precious!
What have we done with it?

James 4:13-15
Look here, you people who say, "Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit." How do you know what will happen tomorrow? For your life is like the morning fog - it's here a little while, then it's gone. What you ought to say is, "If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that."
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There is a saying going around right now:

"We plan, God laughs."

He doesn't laugh because He doesn't want what is best for us. I think He laughs because He knows what is best for us and we are so short-sighted, we are like little children thinking that ice cream before dinner is nutritious and we wonder why Mom won't let us have any?!!

Tomorrow is the beginning of the year 2003! I have barely gotten used to the year 2002, and already it is time to start writing a different number. I really am getting far behind!

The clock will tick over into the New Year this evening and we will celebrate and wish everyone a Happy New Year and then say Good-night, waking the next morning to a new day and a new year and a new set of questions...

What will I do different this year than the last?
What will I do better?
What will I change?
What will I keep the same?
What new resolutions will I make?
Which ones will I actually keep and which ones will I quickly forget?

Hopefully, we will also be asking ourselves about our relationship with God.

How is it?
How can we grow closer?
How can I know Him better?
What would He have for me to do this year?
How can I better serve Him and others?

The Bible says that Abraham
"was trusting God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to do." (James 2:22)

Are we?
Abraham was called to sacrifice his son Isaac, and although God put a stop to it and spared Isaac, Abraham was found willing.
Abraham was called "the friend of God." (James 2:23)

Are we?

Would God call us His friend?
Do we know Him that well?
Have we spent quality time with Him so we are that close?

Or are we busy?...Busy with our jobs, our lives, our families, our duties, our chores, our holidays, our cleaning, our everything? Does it all come before our relationship with our Father?

Do you know that I have all the pictures of Phil I could ever need? I have pictures of Phil on vacations, sleeping, in hospitals, with his dog, at theme parks, with friends, alone, with every member of our family, in his room, out front, out back, in trees, on beaches...I could go on and on and on. But you get the "picture"!

I have memories stored in my head to last a lifetime. I have things that he possessed, I have papers he has written, I have awards he has won, I even have his dog... I have everything I could ever want to help me remember my son, but do you know what is most precious to me now?
TIME.
The time I spent with him, the time I sat with him or joked with him or walked with him or went to the movies with him. The times I talked with him about what was important and things that were not. It is the times that I looked him in the eye and connected with him one on one.
It is time spent together that means the most.

Time can never be gotten back. Time is fleeting. It is gone in a second, or even less. It is the most precious thing we have and it is probably the thing we waste the most on things that don't even matter.

If I had one more minute with Phil, one more hour, or even a day, I would not waste one minute of it busy with anything else on this earth. I would thank God for it and I would concentrate on my son. I would listen to his voice, I would hold his hand, and I would sit next to him. I would watch him smile and laugh and soak up every bit of it. I would not be reading, or writing, or cleaning, or doing anything because each moment would be the most important thing on this earth. Because I would know that it was limited and that it could not be retrieved once it was gone and I would cherish it fully.

But that is now, and that is after the fact, and that has come because a heart has been so broken it has learned what is most precious. This same heart has learned about my friend, God.
Yes, He is my friend, my very Best Friend, and my time with Him is most precious.

It is not to be wasted.
It is not to be taken for granted.
It is to be used, and used well, in getting to know Him better each day I live.

I have to be honest. I did spend a lot of time with Phil, a lot of time, but there were times when I was busy. When I had my things to do, and there were times when what he wanted most was for me to sit with him and watch a movie, to just be with him. There were times when I ignored what I knew and did what I thought I had to do, the busy things. Those are the times I want back that I can't have. Those are the times that make me think now, because all the pictures nd all the memories and all the possessions are here, but the time is gone.

There was this one time when I had this terrible back and neck ache. It had me stiffened up good! I knew what it was. I knew it was God saying sit down and be with your son, you are tooooo busy!! I got the hint! Phil and I rented a bunch of movies and for almost three days we sat together watching movies and just being close. I still can feel the touch of Phil's hand on my back when I would sit forward and he would rub the knot of pain near my shoulder blade. He did not have a lot of energy, but what he had he was using to comfort me. He would make me a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch and I know he was happy. He was happy because he had me to himself, and that was what he needed at that time. I THANK GOD now for that back ache, because it is a precious gift of time with Phil that I will always remember. A time that cannot be taken from me because it was spent in the very best way. How many of those moments do we miss that we can never have back? I wonder...

Sometimes time seems so long and sometimes it is so short. When we are suffering, it seems to last forever, when we are doing our very favorite thing is disappears so quickly.

God blesses the people who patiently endure testing.
Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God
has promised to those who love him.
James 1 :12
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Our patiences gets tested many times in our lives, but there is a reward for those who love God. Those rewards are not just seen in heaven, they are seen right here on this earth. They are seen in the promises of God as He restores joy to a broken heart, a future to one who sees no future, in the many blessings that come our way when we follow His path. God is faithful, all the time. He never leaves us, sometimes He just takes His time...

Time never stays the same, and God never changes.

Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God above,
who created all heaven's lights. Unlike them,
he never changes or casts shifting shadows.
James 1:17
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Time casts its shadows, God is always light. There is no darkness in Him.

This is the message he has given us to announce to you:
God is light and there is no darkness in him at all.
So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God
but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not living in the truth.
1 John 1:5-6
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Do you know how much God wants to spend time with you? I was reading in a book called "Grace For The Moment" by Max Lucado and he writes:

"The words of the prayer vary, but the response never changes. The Savior hears the prayer.

He silences heaven, so he won't miss a word. He hears the prayer."

The Father hears our prayers, Jesus silences heaven so He won't miss a word...and yet we let time get away from us and we let our prayer life fall between the cracks and our relationship with God be put on a back burner because we are...busy. What are we thinking?

And what if our relationships with people here on earth are a reflection of our relationship with God in heaven? Jesus told us the greatest commandment was:

"You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. 'Love your neighbor as yourself."'
Matthew 22:37-39
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This takes time...do we have it? If we don't, what are we doing that's more important? Is there anything really more important? I think not...

When I think back on my days with Phil, I cherish most the times I spent loving him. When Jesus comes in the blink of an eye, when we are taken up into the clouds with Him and this world  comes to an end, what will we remember when we get to heaven? Will we remember all the "important" tasks that we had to get done, or will we remember all the time we spent getting to know Jesus intimately by slowing down long enough to call Him our Friend? Counselor? Savior? Will we know Him from our days on earth, or will we be barely an acquaintance who is allowed into the Wedding Party wondering what we are doing there?

I want to be part of the family. I want to be the one who gets to go behind the scenes and see the bride before she walks up the aisle. The one who knows so many of the other guests it is pure fun! The one who feels like she belongs there because there is a sense of home at the feast. And I know this is only possible with time...

So as the clock ticks towards midnight tonight, I will reflect on this past year that now seems so fleeting even though I know some days were very long. I will thank God for the time we have spent together, and how we have grown closer and for all the times that I have been comforted by our relationship.
As the clock ticks past midnight and I head for bed, I will thank God for who He is in my life, and for how far He has brought me this past year. I will thank Him for "silencing heaven" when I call to Him and for listening to my every heart cry.
As the clock ticks on, I will thank my Father in heaven, my Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit for always being there, any hour or any day, wherever I am, they are there with all the time in the world for me!
And as the clock ticks into the year 2003, my New Year's Resolution will simply be about time...

About spending it in the best way possible with those I love and with God.
About using it in the best way possible to serve those I love and to serve God.
And about not wasting it by loving the things of this world more than loving my time with God.

Have a Happy New Year!

Living in His Peace,
Diane