Time Hover
I allowed Jude to order a particular toy he had been wanting off of the internet. The shipping was “fast and free” and the estimated day of delivery was Friday. All week he could hardly sleep, and all he could talk about was what was coming on Friday. The anticipation was palpable and constant.
Well Friday came, and the package did not.
I watched as the disappointment seeped in to his sensitive heart and poured out of his eyes.
It finally arrived the next day. His joy and loud celebration continues to resound in my memory.
We have started the countdown on the calendar to the day that Daddy will be home. What was once unknown, now has a number!
Many times in military life, the ability to really count down is not there. Departure and return dates are fluid and vague. This security measure cloaks the season in even more insecurity for those of us that are at the mercy of Uncle Sam.
To have a number circled and a smiley face drawn on the calendar is a momentous gift in and of itself, but to also know that soon my other half and best friend will be coming back to me?
God has shown me great mercy.
And yet never does the clock move more slowly than for a woman who is in her last month of pregnancy. Time seems to emulate how long it takes for me to put on pants; or walk from one end of the grocery story to the other. My life has slowed to a crawl… er, waddle.
“God’s perfect timing” is something people seem to love to bring up with me lately. To be honest, sometimes that pushes the internal red button that makes me want to throw stuff and yell, “I KNOW!!” Because hormones.
I’ve seen His perfect timing. I have. I have lived it.
But I am so incurably human.
As I write this, tiny feet push my ribs out of their cage, and I am impatient.
In these unavoidable seasons of limbo, the clock seems to either not move forward at all or it constantly hops time zones. This disorients me and sends me craving the seasons of life where a minute is a consistent 60 seconds instead of an unsteady arrhythmia of unpredictable events.
In my impatience, I am reminded that as much as C.J.’s return home will bring with it a sense of relief and safety, he is not my Savior. The one who knows me completely. He holds time in His universe- sized palm.
“Just give it to the Lord.” — Another phrase Christians love to throw out there as a punctuation mark.
A dear voice from my past once told me to picture my “burden” as a large, cumbersome, gelatinous mass (I picture something akin to Jabba the Hutt). As I hoist this fluid thing up on God’s altar and attempt to leave it there, it slowly oozes down the sides so I have to keep pushing it back up there.
I keep that picture in my mind as I continue to learn trust. It turns out that trust isn’t easily contained or held onto. It is more liquid than solid, and slips out of grasp easily.
In the meantime, I am doing my best to live in the moment and not resent time’s crawl as I await my package.
Because it’s in the sluggish, at times tedious minute, that I have room to notice new freckles on tiny noses.
I can sit on my porch swing with empty arms and rock slow and steady.
Slowness gives space for marvel.
Marvel gives way to worship.
And worship renders time obsolete.
