Well here I am, 39! I’m pretty excited to get here and I am
really and truly looking forward to this next year. Today I have been thinking about the people
in my life, goals, deadlines, past, present and future;, things I have
accomplished, stuff I would like to accomplish. There are so many things I
would like to do and teach to my kids, and it seems there is so little time to
get these things done in. We are really geared to the now, the immediate
gratification, and the time of the clock.
I have always been a person of the clock. I have a difficult
time being late, not on time, behind everyone else (with the exception of when
I run). I like schedules, as a matter of fact, I live in schedules; I call them
plans. A few years ago you couldn’t mess with my plans without a terrible repercussion,
which would be my temper tantrum. I felt like my life would unravel in front of
me as my nicely laid plan for the day would fall off the paper I had spent the
evening before preparing, and lay at my feet in a mess. I wouldn’t know what to
do with the rest of the day, or how to even start to refigure the PLAN for the
day if my husband threw a wrench into my day. The wrench could have been I
needed the car, and so did he for work (which always trumped my need for the
car), or an extra errand that I didn’t have on my current plan. Admittedly it
was a little neurotic (and still am in other ways), but this is how I felt it
had to be at the time to get everything accomplished, and I felt it was a
failure if I was unable to attend to all these things in my plan. Maybe I felt
I was a failure without these accomplishments? I look back now and see how my
thinking was wrong.
My Lord and my husband have been such a great help with
this, as my hubby threw many wrenches into my plans over the years, and I had
the Lord there to teach me how to adapt. My husband is very patient and I am grateful
for him, he has the ability to let things go and let them roll off his back. I
have also learned over these years how his ability to adapt to the changing
schedules placed in front of him are skills I have reluctantly learned, and can
now appreciate. I find it interesting how God teaches me these lessons, even if
they are painful, as stretching and growing often is. Tonight I was sitting and
reflecting how far I feel I have come in this area, as I finished making my
plan for the day, adding a few side notes to things that I could do or not do.
Realizing that if I get this day accomplished I would feel good, but if
something else arises that was more pertinent, I would be fine to go and do
that as well and, more importantly, my day will not crash on the floor at my
feet.
After this reflection I decided to have a moment and read. “The
rest of God, restoring your soul by restoring the Sabbath” by Mark Buchanan is currently
on my night side table (or in my purse) as I am re-reading this awesome book. In
the early part of the book the author talks about time and its’ Greek origin.
Did you know that they have two words to describe time? I have read this book
before and only now am I recognizing this. One word is chronos; this is the
time of our clocks and calendar. The word derives from a Greek god who was a
minor deity who gorges himself on his own children; he is always consuming and
never accomplishes anything. The author gives such a description of art work depicting
this deity that it reflects the direness of how I would structure my plan, and
still only accomplish the outside shell of what would really need to get done.
This other Greek word is kairos. “This is time as gift, as
opportunity, as season. It is pregnant with purpose. In kairos time you ask not
‘What time it is?’ but ‘What is this time for?’…. ‘There is a time for
everything.’ Ecclesiastes says, ‘and a season for every activity under heaven.’”pg36
What a difference in viewing time. Tonight this is just what
I needed; to see how far I have come, to glimpse how far I have to go. In a conversation I had the other day I
listened to someone talking about ‘Mexican time’. I have never been to Mexico,
so it was explained to me that it is not as important to some that the time of
the clock dictates to them what needs to be done and when. I have also heard
this in reference to places like Jamaica, and other island nations. Here in
Canada I have heard many times people say this about or First Nations and here
its’ called “Aboriginal time”. Until tonight I have found this term insulting.
Now, with a new perspective, I see this as a gift. This gives me insight that I
don’t yet have this ability to stop and ask “what is this time for?” not “what
time is it?” Prioritizing what is REALLY important, no matter what the clock
says. I think that I have been slowly learning this and am grateful that I can recognize
the importance of the lesson. I find its’ always nice to know that there has
been purpose to the pain of growing.
So I do look forward to this year, and one more goal will be
to recognize what Gods’ been teaching me about His time. Yes, I will put that
into my plan for the day! (there is still so much for me to learn)
