The Burdens and Beauty of Time

 

  

          I have more recently realized just how valuable time is and how quickly it flies. It feels like it was just yesterday when I was nine years old and overjoyed to find out that I got a puppy on Christmas morning. Now that puppy is ten years older. I was once taller than my younger brothers, but now they both tower over me. A year ago, I was preparing to move into my first year of college. That first year flew by and now I am about to enter my second. It often seems like time moves faster and faster with each year that passes.

         I'll sometimes look through old photographs from my childhood, and just be shocked by how much happened in my nineteen years of life. My family moved around a few times, so people and friendships were always coming and going. My parents were married for a majority of my life, and now it's been over three years since they separated. There was a time when I was a very quiet and shy little girl. I wore glasses and I enjoyed reading, writing, and doing anything with art. My parents were married and for a while I believed that I was part of a happy and healthy family. But with time and growing up I learned that things just change. I am a young woman now, and it's hitting me that I am making adult decisions on my own. My childhood is over, and now I find myself in a brand-new season of life. 

        The timespan of life can last from one second to a handful of decades. In the time you are alive on this earth you will go through seasons where anything can happen.

                        "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

                        a time to be born and a time to die;

                         a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

                        a time to kill, and a time to heal;

                        a time to break down, and a time to build up;

                        a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

                        a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

                        a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

                        a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

                        a time to seek, and a time to lose;

                        a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

                        a time to tear, and a time to sew;

                        a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

                        a time to love, and a time to hate;

                        a time for war, and a time for peace." (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

             

        These verses are examples of the different directions that your life will take as you live it. Sometimes there will be good, and sometimes there will be bad. Things that you don't expect to happen occur when you least expect them to. 

        Time can be brutal. At one moment you are young and innocent without a troubled thought in the world. Before you know it, you are reaching the end of your life, barely able to walk and exposed to the realities of this earth. Time does not slow down or stop. There is no way to reverse it so that you can relive or change the past. It just keeps on going, and we are forced to move along with it. 

       Because of sin, not everything that occurs during this life will be pleasing. And because time cannot be controlled, we must accept that somethings in life are out of our hands. It's so easy to linger on our past. There are regrets and areas of my past that I struggled to let go of, and I had to realize that focusing too much on that was preventing me from moving along with time. 

                    "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away." (Psalms 90:10)

        Life is just too short and valuable to be wasted on anything. The beginning of Psalms 90 starts off by describing God as our "dwelling place in all generations". Since the beginning of time, God has always been present. He has always been there for us to go to whenever life goes wrong. Sin prevents us from being able to live a fulfilling life on our own, because we are only flesh. When tragedy arises, there is no way to find joy in life again if our lives are not entrusted in God. 

                 "And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:17)

        Yes, it is true that nothing in this world lasts forever. People are born and then eventually die, but this does not have to be viewed negatively! Your flesh may die, but YOU will live on forever with the Holy Spirit if you use your time on this earth wisely. 

       This second, I encourage you to make the decision to make the most of your time. Do everything that your heart desires while doing it for the Lord, and when things don't go your way just make the best that you can with what you have and trust that in the end everything will be okay. Because your hourglass will someday run out, and you will have an eternal life awaiting you that is 10,000 times greater than this one.

    Hoping that this had an impact on somebody today, and that everyone had a relaxing summer!

    With Love,

            - Emma