Time

I’ve always loved thinking about Time.

I remember working at an office job where, at the beginning, there was very little to do. Piles and Piles and Piles of paperwork awaited me every morning, begging to be filed. Although I know my ABC’s, filing for 8 hours is not enough brain stimulation to keep me awake, regardless of the amount of coffee I consumed. Those days were longer than summer days as a kid. A close second was the day I got a temp job where I had to sit in front of a paper shredder and – yes – shred paper for 8 hours. Oh my goodness. Great memories.

I also remember when my oldest daughter was around 2 months old, still in the blob stage. I was sitting over her, shaking a rattle thinking, “Is this it?” The day droned on and on. I knew I was supposed to be enjoying it because “it goes quickly, my how they’ve grown, and you’ll blink and they’ll grow up,” but I have to admit and be honest that it was challenging to savor every moment when my brain was falling asleep standing up.

But then there are other days, like when my friends come over. We have a play group that meets almost weekly with 11 kids combined ages 6 and under. By the time we have arrived, made lunch, eaten, cleaned up lunch, had snacks, done an activity, and kept things under control, it is time to go home and our conversations have been little more than 2-3 sentences in a row. I wonder where the few precious hours went. Then our husbands are amazed when we go out alone without kids and talk until 2 in the morning. “But you see each other all the time!”

I began thinking about this recently after having a dream in between snooze alarms. I know that the dream in reality was only 7 minutes, but in dreamland it spanned over days. Upon first awakening, the dream was very clear and specific and there were very solid details filled into those days. In only seven minutes.

As a finite creature, I often have trouble fathoming the idea of time and eternity. Forever. No beginning or end. No constraints or barriers. Just always. It helps me to think that God is the creator of time and is therefore not contained by his creation, just as he is not subject to gravity which he also created for us.

He is separate from it, Holy, apart.

When I have dreams like that, it helps me realize that there is more to time (or the lack of real time) than our minds can fathom. God gave us the sun to make days and nights so that the small portion of our brain that we actually use can have something tangible to go off of with boundaries we can easily understand.

I’m actually fully satisfied that I don’t understand. I’m thankful that I have a God who is bigger and more complex than me. I don’t have to have it all figured out, that is His job. I want to trust Him and thank Him that although He is awesome and huge and big and “Oh Wow!” and all the other words like that, he cares for me personally and has a plan for my life and loves me… all the time – and beyond it.