I woke up at 3:30 this morning. Well, it was 3:30 because I am in Seattle but it was 6:30 in New York. Actually last week it would have been 5:30 since we hadn’t “sprung forward” yet. No wonder my body is confused. I find the concept of time to be fascinating. An hour is always 60 minutes, and a day always has 24 hours but that can seem too long or too short or just right. When my daughters were young, there were days that were eternally long – would it ever be bedtime. I remember one winter evening when my husband was on duty, bathing the girls early, eating dinner early and almost getting them in bed extra early. My older daughter wasn’t old enough to tell time but she knew enough about time to know that the microwave reading “six – three – zero” wasn’t bedtime. Oh silly mommy. Of course in retrospect wasn’t that just yesterday. Days may be long but the years are a blink of an eye. I think of it this way when I was 5 years old one year was a fifth of my life but know that I am in my 50’s one year is a 50th of my life – no wonder it seems to go faster.
At summer camp a few years ago I decided to go with the Wednesday schedule on Tuesday. I didn’t think that was such a strange concept. At camp, Wednesdays were called “wacky wednesdays”- a day of silliness and water games but it was supposed to rain on Wednesday so at Tuesday staff meeting I announced it was Wacky Wednesday. Oh my that freaked a few counselors out. I said “Wednesday was so wacky that it showed up on Tuesday”. A counselor asked if “we were allowed to do that”. I thought and replied “God makes the sun rise and we can call it whatever we want”. The bottom line is a I don’t control the sun rising and setting but I have a say in how I use each day.
Time is an interesting concept. It can be friend or foe. I have often commented that the only thing that separates me from my deceased husband is time. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer 4 years ago all I wanted was more time. When we are young, we want time to speed up so we can grow up but when we are older we want some days to slow down so we can savor the moments. One of my favorite sayings is “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift.” Thank you Lord for this day – may I spend the hours wisely.
