On time

In a recent post, I talked about my "star gift" for this year: time. I have continued to think a lot about it, and figured it was time for another reflection on it.

First of all, I have noticed recently how bustling I am - in a good way! I know I am feeling more myself, because for the first time in months I am really excited about what I'm doing again. I realized today that I have for the last year and a half been in survival mode, just getting done what needs to get done, with no extra energy for anything fun. But today I was thinking about Lent and planning for Lent and Easter, and I was flipping through the hymnal and looking for new music to sing and imagining how to use it... I haven't done this in so long! I am eager to read things. I want to learn again. I want to try new things again. I am excited about prayer and reading the Bible. When I imagine picking up a new practice, it is exciting instead of draining. I decided my Lenten discipline this year would be to try to walk 10,000 steps a day; a year ago, this would be an insurmountable hill, but I think I could actually do it! Will it mean being much more intentional about getting off my behind and moving? Yes, but that no longer makes me want to cry and give up. It makes me happy! What a lovely feeling.

That said, there is a downside to my sudden burst of energy: it is unsustainable. I simply cannot do everything I have wanted to do for the last 18 months all right now. And this is where I come back to my star gift: time.

One of my ways I decided to focus on time this year was that every time I started to feel the stress of being rushed, I would tell myself, "I have time." That has *mostly* worked. Am I late to things sometimes? Yeah. But the world has not ended as a result. (In fact, it has made me a safer driver!) I also have tried to avoid saying, "I'm busy," and while that has slipped out a few times, I realized immediately that when I said it I meant it as a good thing, as in, "I'm doing a lot of things that I love right now." Still, this is a work in progress, and have a long way to go.

Then today, as I was looking for Lenten resources, I came across this:

O God, you are slow to anger and swift to have mercy;
Forgive us when we treat time as a commodity or an enemy,
when we abuse your gift of time.

In our fastness and our slowness,
help us to keep pace with you.
Free us to live in your time, a new time
in which there is a time for everything under heaven.
and slow is not too slow, and fast is not too fast.

Transform us into people who see time as a gift and a friend,
who live as if we have time,
because we know that your time will never cease.
Through Jesus we pray, Amen.


I don't know who wrote this, but it is exactly the prayer I need right now. I need to print it out and put it on all of my mirrors and my dashboard and my desk. What a beautiful way to capture and celebrate the gift of time.