We've just been through Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations. We've enjoyed laughter and conversation. However, as is my wont, I am thinking about the year gone by and the year ahead as the first day of 2009 winds down.
Time sure marches on. I look at my nephew David cuddling his little girl, and remember that just a short time ago, he was splashing in the water at the Goderich beach with all of my children. How'd he grow up so fast?
I look at my eldest grandson, Justin, and remember the day of his birth, almost ten years ago now. What a marvel to hold my first grandchild! And now we're expecting our 16th, 17th, and 18th grandbabies. Where'd the time go?
Ecclesiastes speaks with wisdom about time:
A Time for Everything
3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
I sometimes feel that I am "running out of time", or "haven't enough time", or I "wish the time would go by faster" - in the dentist's chair, for instance. Yet God says I have just enough time between the time I am born and the time I will die. I'll learn much along the way about when to act, and when to restrain myself from acting.
In the past couple of months, we've had some family crises that have necessitated a bit of weeping, yet last night, it was time to laugh. We had time this past week for embracing the ones we love, and time for speaking the truth in love to a hurting niece.
I do not know what the future holds. I have no idea what 2009 will mean for myself or my family. But I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent, Self-Sufficient One has plans to prosper me, to give me a future and a hope.
I hope 2009 will be a very good year. I hope we'll look back at the end of the year, and marvel at the good times, and rejoice at seeing how the Hand of God preserved us through the bad times.
Time is a gift. Let's not waste it.
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