Time...Does Anybody Really Care?

 

     “Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care? If so, I can’t imagine why; we’ve all got time enough to cry.”

     Do you recognize those lyrics? That is a song called “Time” that Chicago made famous in 1967. Back then, it really didn’t seem as though anyone cared about time. When you are young you think that time is there for you to waste and it will be there forever.

     We have just witnessed 2009 go and the year 2010 appear as if out of nowhere. If you were a teenager in 1967, could you imagine the year 2010? It sounds so futuristic. Yet, here it is.

     I’m not sure who Zall is or what his first Law was, but his Second Law says, “How long a minute is, depends on what side of the bathroom door you are on!”

     Emily Dickinson said, “To live is so startling that it leaves little time for anything else.” It is so true. We all get so busy living our lives and doing the things we need to do, it does “leave little time for anything else.”

     I think that I got a little insight at an early age of how important time is because my mother died when I was 15. I was a typical teenager that knew everything and my mother knew nothing and all of us would live forever. When she died I was stunned. I could hardly believe that there was no more time to say the things I should have said and do the things I should have done. I did not make those same mistakes when dad died and I was 39.

     I have become a little over-protective of the time I have on this earth. My daughters get a little annoyed with me because every time (every time!) we talk on the phone, and we talk a lot, I would end in saying “I love you”. My husband and I are the same way. I know it may seem a little morbid, but you never know when it is the last time you get to say those words. And…can you hear those words TOO often?

     We mortals have an idea of what time means to us and we want everything in the time frame we want it in. No matter how hard we try to control the things in our life or the time we have here, we are not in charge. Thank you, God! He does a much better job at time management than we ever can.

     No one can put the importance of time in perspective better than Solomon did in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: “There is a time for everything,
       and a season for every activity under heaven: 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, 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.”      

     Sometimes, people get so busy that they forget to enjoy the time they have. My mother-in-law used to tell me that the dishes will stay in the sink forever, but a baby grows and grows and you don’t want to miss a minute of it.

     Because time is so precious and fleeting, I want to enjoy every minute of it. I want to do everything and be everywhere the Lord wants for me. I don’t want to miss a thing.

     And, I pray the same for each of you this New Day of the New Year!