Right on Time

Time is a weird thing to live in and experience; weirder still to try and articulate.

My 14 year-old daughter has a unique obsession with time- at least that’s how I see it. She will often say things like, “I can’t believe we only have two days until school starts,” or “I can’t believe it’s only a week until we leave for India.” She might say with relief, “Only two more days until Friday,” or with dread, “I’m not ready for Spring Break to be over. It can’t possibly be time to go back to school.”

To be clear, this isn’t about countdowns. My son, who started school this Wednesday, came home Thursday and said his math teacher already had a countdown posted on the board: 178 Days until Summer Break. [Sigh. I just can’t…] Again, this post is not about countdowns. It is about the thing that my daughter is attempting to articulate, about how time feels in relation to all the things happening and/or coming up in life. Basically, that time is weird.

Often when we think about life and living, we think about how time feels. Time flies. Time drags. But how is it that time has a “feel” to it, fast or slow, or anything else? The clock is always ticking, yes, but it always ticks at the same speed. Yet somehow, the various things that we are living through change our experience of time.

I heartily agree with my daughter that some of life’s experiences feel different than others. The start of a new school year always prompts an anxious sense of rushing, or urgency. It tends to feel uncomfortable, but it goes fast. New things are like that. The end of a school year also flits by, but in a completely different way, slipping through our fingers and filling our lungs with argent, fresh air. An eager readiness.

What about the long, slow, gentle feel of an evening lake-side, languid beside a ripe, peach-colored sun? Time is luxurious.

What about a family car trip, when you are almost there, but not yet, and the van is ready to burst its seams from the long day of GPS navigation and music too loud? Time is forever right then while you are stuck.

Quite unlike the moment when your car breaks down at an intersection and the other cars start moving, and one honks its horn. Then, time speeds all around you while you are stuck.

Oh, but what about the change of seasons? Like when spring has been around for awhile and the crabapple blossoms burst, and the sky is lite-brite blue while the sun shines. Time is a gift.

What about these changes of season: when children grow past squalling infancy, to toddlers poking into literally everything, to scraped knees in the school yard, to edgy, always-challenging teens, (and I don’t even know the rest of it yet!!). Or, the season when your grandmother leaves you a voicemail that is way, way too long and convoluted, but you save it because she said, “I love you,” and, well, that season is nearing the end of a season.

Time.

Time is so weird.

I’ve long had a goal of not wishing away time- which we tend to do when time feels hard, or drudge-y, or painful, or mean. We wish for the next easy, sweet, good thing on the ever-full calendar, and somehow miss most of everything in between, just getting there.

Not wishing away time is just another way of saying I want to be present in my life. Even if it feels hard, drudge-y, painful, or mean. Because time is the movement of our life, and it has a feel because life is so real.

Every moment of every day, of every week, month, or year, while the clock does its ticking, we live. Existing in God’s created wonder— by which I don’t mean to say it is all la-di-da-beautiful, but that it is God’s, and we are in it. And everything is somehow right on time.

So, we start school years, hug our children close, spend leisurely nights soaking up sunsets, and sometimes walk through valleys of hardship and death. Life is never all easy, or all hard, but we do what we can to take it all in stride as the clock ticks.

And, we fix our eyes on our loving God who leads us down the path, sometimes strolling and sometimes racing. We say our thank yous, we cry our tears. We trust. Somehow, then, as the clock ticks we find that our hearts are in sync with time, and with our good God.

Header clock photo by Malvestida on Unsplash

Peach sunset photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Math photo by Chris Liverani on Unsplash

Timex clock photo by Sonja Langford on Unsplash