We’ve sat around this same table for as long as I can remember. We grew up around this table, my two younger sisters and I. And now grown and gone, we return as often as we can to our childhood home on the farm to enjoy a meal and the comfortable company of family.

Today is one of those special days.

The middle one, who is eight months swollen with babies three and four, has her feet up and says, “I just want the next four weeks to pass quickly.”

I nod agreement, sympathetic to her situation. She’s reached the God-given point when a woman would gladly welcome labour over her present condition.

I gaze out the big farm window across from the dining table at the mounds of snow. “I just wish winter were over and spring were here.”

Our youngest sister agrees, adding, “I can’t wait for summer to come.”

I say it then almost under my breath and mostly for myself, “We miss now when we wish for tomorrow.”

It seems like just yesterday we were eating around this table as young girls with mom and dad. How quickly the time has passed!

And now here we all are, wishing time away.

Wishing it would pass quickly.

Wishing for tomorrow.

Wasting this moment.

Time speeds up nor slows down for no man.

I know of wishing time would speed up, but how it stubbornly moved so slowly – when the minute hand seemed to stand still on the face of that hospital room clock. Outside the world whirred by, people running and busy as usual, but seven weeks seemed an eternity for me while on bed rest waiting for our son to be born.

I also know of wishing time would slow down – when he stands next to me and his five-year-old frame stretches taller than I remembered and I’ve all but blinked and we’re here. Those seven weeks seemed longer than these five years. Funny how time works.

God has graciously given each person twenty-four hours in a day, sixty minutes in an hour, sixty seconds in a minute. No more. No less.

Time circles the clock at the same rate for each person. It’s only our situation and perspective that can either speed it up or slow it down.  

But what if we lived at the same rate as the minute hand circles the clock? What if we lived in the here and now, fully present in each moment? I wonder what we would see and hear and smell and touch and taste that we might otherwise miss. What would we experience that would ordinarily pass by unnoticed?

Fully engaged in now. 

When we waste time, we waste life, because life is time. 

I can understand her wanting the next four weeks to pass quickly to the moment they will meet their little ones. I can understand the youngest and I wanting warmer weather.

But I do not want to waste today.

I study their faces around the table because I know the time will come all too quickly when grey streaks our hair, our own children are grown and gone, and we will look back to this moment and wonder where the time went.

It escapes the grasps of all, but can be embraced by all.

Fully engaged in now.

I sit and eat my breakfast alone, book in hand. It is a rare treat. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I had the luxury of reading a book while eating my morning meal.

He’s taken the kids out for breakfast and then to run a few errands so I can have a couple of hours of quiet. He is so good to me.

I know my time is limited, but I fight the urge to gulp down the food and get on to the next thing. I choose instead to linger, enjoying the moment.

I listen to the silence. I take it in as blessing, but only because these walls are most often filled with noise.

I think what if. What if these walls were always silent? What if the noisy laughter, boisterous play, and even the piercing cry of children was always absent? Then I would surely welcome the sound of running feet, of hockey pucks ricocheting off my fridge, and maybe even the constant whining and squabbles.

It’s all a matter of perspective.

So now, here in this moment, I’m grateful for the silence.

Eventually I put my book away and reluctantly get on to the next thing. I must be productive with this time.

Hours later they come tumbling through the door, loud voices and stomping feet.

And then I whisper thanks for their noise that fills this home with joy and laughter.

I sit across the table from a wise, dear friend. We hug our steaming cups on a cold winter night drinking warmth deep and she speaks warm words deep into my heart.

They are words she’s spoken to me before – I know this – but I need to hear them again. Sometimes we need to be reminded of truth over and over – thousands of times – she says. Relief floods over me. It’s o.k. to be in this place again.

I’m telling about the waiting and telling how I wish I knew His plans and purposes for my life. What one thing does He have for me? Feeling almost frantic that time is short, I say I should know by now. This feeling within be to be more and do more only goes stronger with each passing day, but God is saying wait. He’s saying not now. He has not yet revealed His plan.

Doors have closed. Life has returned to normal.

But I long for change.

Having lived twice the number of years I have, her words are full of understanding and wisdom. I sense she’s been where I am.

She says:

Discovering God’s plan is a journey. It takes time.

There is beauty in the waiting. It is here we grow deep into Him, learn to hear His voice in greater measure, and are transformed.

In the end, what it looks like doesn’t really matter. God cares more about who we are than what we do.

I talk about what I am doing in the waiting. This blog. Tapping keys and etching words here. I tell her that lately the words rarely come early, but never late. I try to sit and plan out posts for weeks ahead, but the words simply aren’t there. I wonder what I’ll write three days from now, but honestly have no clue. God always gives the words the day before.

Rarely early, but never late.

She looks deep into my eyes and smiles knowingly, giving me the gift of silence.

I allow my own words to sink in.

God is rarely early, but never late.

I laugh loud. That’s it! If God is faithful with the small words I write here, giving them at just the right time, He will be faithful to reveal His plans in His timing.

I can trust Him to guide and direct me at the right time.

I can rest in this.

We both laugh long all the way home at the way God used the words of my own mouth to teach me.