Time is Flying

I must really be getting older. As this school year is drawing to a close I'm realizing I have only three more years with Briana to study all the amazing things I want to share with her. In years past, three years would have seemed like plenty of time--a long time in fact. But when I reflect that Kiana is three years old. . .well, it seems she was born such a short time ago. And I just want to slow time down. I want to enjoy every moment, revel in each moment, savor each moment.

In my recent reading of One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp I heard the author expressing the same thought--but she has figured out how to slow down the passage of time.

"And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows. Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time's river slows, slows, slows" (68).

Live fully in the moment. Wherever you are, BE there. All of you, all of your attention, all of your focus.

So often I don't do this. Too often I'm rushing around, trying to accomplish what I must right now with my mind on what comes next, my concern on what needs crossed off the 'to do' list. Too often I give little voices less than half my attention as I appease them with a distracted "mmmmm, hmmmmm."

To slow down the passing of time, I hear that I need to experience each little nuance of life. I need to stop and look in those big eyes, fondly tuck chocolate-smeared smiles away in my heart, and let the awe over a sunset viewed from my deck completely fill my being.

"This is where God is. In the present. I AM--His very name. I want to take shoes off. I AM, so full of the weight of the present, that time's river slows to a still. . .and God Himself is timeless" (69).

We have a good friend who works as a physician in Ohio. He loves to visit us here on our Missouri farm where he says life is just more simple. The pace of life is slower, he tells us. It's just so peaceful.

That is likely true in many ways. I think living close to the land keeps one more in tune with the rhythms of life. There aren't as many artificial distractions. But a life of simplicity, peace, and slower pace might be as much a frame of mind as it is geography. Fully experiencing life's blessings--acknowledging and appreciating them-- might indeed be the key.

"How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full? The slower the living, the greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction" (76).