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once upon a timeLife is short?? I think we should go right on saying that to young people, because as many of us know there’s just something about being young that makes us believe we’re invincible, that we have all the time in the world. What ever it is, do it now, don’t delay, life is short…

This is especially true of women about my age, well perhaps just a wee bit younger. The other day I listened to a couple of women finishing their education, paying off their debt, getting established, getting their life together…. so they could get married and have kids. I so wanted to say, it ain’t happening! I’ve been on the planet for half a century and I’ve yet to “get my life together.” That’s a pipe dream!  If you ever get your life together, that’s about the time it all starts falling apart anyway….

I buttoned my lip, reluctant to explain the harsh facts of life to some lovely women in their 40’s, but of course being a weak woman I cannot remain silent for long. There’s something tragic to me about women still going to school, still paying for an education they will never use, dreaming about getting married and having kids. I so wanted to speak the truth to them, see there’s this thing called biology, but I bit my tongue.

Life is short, biology is unforgiving, these things are all true, but it occurs to me that my mind set is all wrong, that for a Christian, life is actually eternal. Eternity is a long, long time. And time is not a linear thing as we perceive it, trapped within the constraints of our own biology. To everything there is a time and a season…. except for the One who actually created time and the seasons.

Needless to say, I don’t like death and dying, and when young people die it really hurts, because it wasn’t their time, because they were cut short, because there is so much more life I want them to live, and yet, life for a Christian is eternal. Those preconceived notions I have that cause me so much grief, are human ones, trapped in biological time, forgetting that we exist outside of time, that we are timeless, so to speak.

I recently chatted with a woman who lost her daughter at 8 yrs old, cancer, and the grief is just tangible, it’s physical, it just makes you ache all over, and yet she said the same thing, there’s something eternal about time, I know it, I can feel it, I can sense it. She’s gone but she’s not really gone. I love that mother’s intuition that just knows what it knows.

It’s really never too late with God and He is full of surprises. He can turn life upside down in a good way. He can take you places you never thought you would go, because you feared time had already passed you by.

Life is fleeting, but it occurs to me that I really need to cultivate a more eternal mindset, one that is not pressed for time, one that sees the hour glass as unlimited, as timeless. Somewhat funny, we were talking about retirement, hubby and I, knowing full well we will never retire, in fact, it would not surprise me in the least if I actually had to prepare lunch for my own funeral, but then I thought, what a blessing that would be, what a gift to still be well enough, to still have my wits about me right to the very end….

Somewhat funny but I promise you, on that very day I’ll still be trying to get my life together, as if such a thing could ever be a place you land on, somewhere you arrive.

time