Time Stop

Most days we go through life not feeling much of anything. We think we feel things. We think we are so busy that we cannot possibly add one more thing to the list, so inundated with bad things on the news that we could scream, so stressed that one more frustrating email will cause a breakdown. And, it very well might. But our days march on.

Then there are a handful of days when our feelings are so strong that they seem to stop time.

"There's nothing left."
"There's no heartbeat."
"He didn't make it."
"Permanent."
"Terminal."
"Gone."

The second hand slows until it stops, and our entire sense of time changes. We are outside of a situation, yet so deep inside it at the same time. We are sinking into the darkest hole, yet being propelled out beyond earth's atmosphere. We're the star of a horror movie that we're watching from a distance. Weeks turn to seconds. Minutes to years. We feel so strongly that we become numb. See so clearly we become blind. Hear so precisely that everything dissolves into white noise.

A paradox, isn't it? That we could feel so much that we shut down. Like a fuse blowing from too much electricity.

And suddenly, the lists and the news and the frustrating small things in our days aren't important anymore. We can't seem to continue with the trivial, and we can't understand how anyone else is able to, either. Don't you understand what just happened? we think. Don't you understand that lists don't matter right now? And truly, we can't imagine them ever mattering again.

But gradually, they do. Thankfully, they do. Once again we fill our lists. Care what's happening on the news. Feel the stress of normal every-day-ness.

No, it's not fully the same. Sometimes, it's very different. We don't live life the same, because we are not the same. The moments that stopped time will always be marked. We will circle them on our calendars. They will be filled with tissues, and questions, and clenched fists. Our throats will ache as the marked days come, but then they will go. Eventually.

***

There are other moments with the power to stop time, too.

"It's a boy!"
"I love you."
"I'm coming home."
"She's safe."
"Will you marry me?"

And our feelings are again so strong that we are paralyzed, in a completely different way. We run from the living room to the kitchen to the backyard with our hearts in our throats, while the second hand spins so fast that we could never keep up. We mark those days too, with hearts and fireworks and champagne and extra dessert.

***

Even though the second scenarios are how we would prefer time to stop, we get a mix of both over the course of life. Unfortunately, we don't get to choose our stops and we will probably never know why our days are marked in the pattern that they are.

But, we can learn from our marked days, whether they're marked by bitterness or bliss.

We learn that lists aren't what we should live by. What happens on the news isn't nearly as important as what's happening in our home. Mourning and joy can be kindred spirits. We learn to cherish the days between the marked ones, and to feel the marked ones deeply. No matter what the feelings are.

(And always get the extra dessert.)

I know Jesus felt strongly. From seeing the excitement in miraculous healings, to watching loved ones suffer in grief, to seeing the joy of children, to being crucified, to providing our way to eternal freedom...he is no stranger to strong feelings. The creator of time himself knows what it feels like when time stands still. And he holds all the clocks in the palm of his hand.

So today, I'm honoring time stopping and all the lessons that it teaches us, even if it's never what we would have chosen. Both the broken and the beautiful. So often they end up being the same.

***

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end" (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11).

Weeds

Today, I started clearing our garden to prepare for planting. We didn't plant last year and it's already June, so the weeds are as high as my knees. I only finished about a fourth of that job. My back hurts already, and I'm still a long way from actually being able to plant things. After the clearing, we'll have to till the soil, buy new topsoil, pick out our plants, and, finally, put them in their new homes. I wish I could have started this process a month ago, but we've been out of the country for two weeks. If I'd planted anything before we left, it would have died while we were gone. Summer weather came late, too, so there wasn't really an opportunity to prepare anything before now.

I can't believe summer is already here again. It seems like 2016 just started, and it's already halfway over.

Summer always brings intense emotions for me, all across the spectrum. Grief, loneliness, contentment, joy. Grief from wishing I could be at camp. Loneliness from long days spent at home, trying to create something worthwhile. Contentment from more time with Bandit, Mark, and Jesus. Joy from making memories that can only be made in the summer - sprinklers, lawn mowers, traveling, late sunsets.

I've wanted to "be a writer" since I was eight years old, yet I still haven't created anything that I'm especially proud of. It would be a lie to say I've written nothing of value, because I know I have. But I'm still so far from creating the big stories that live in my dreams. I'm on the edge of changing that, though.

So we begin again. Another summer is here, but this is the summer of dreams becoming reality. I'm trusting in Jesus to pull me through, because I know I can't do it on my own. Honestly, there's very little in me that thinks I can actually accomplish this right now. I'm not feeling particularly capable. Or disciplined. Or focused. Or brave.

But I learned in college and therapy and books to take things one challenge at a time. So, that is what I will do. I will write, even if all I accomplish in one sitting is a fourth of the weeding. I won't get lost in the giant scheme of it all. I'll just focus on pulling one weed at a time.