Dear Time,

Maybe it’s middle-age.

Maybe it’s the chaotic pace of life, or maybe it’s just me, but I find myself angry with you.

You loom over me, always reminding me I’ll never finish all that needs to be done.  I’d like to play fair, but how can I when you care nothing for me? No matter what I do, I can’t seem to outrun, outpace, or outwit you.

I wake up earlier, hoping and praying I can do all those things I’ve planned each day. Instead, I usually find myself racing around in a frantic pace trying to stuff as much stuff into every moment.

The faster I go, the faster you fly.  As I look in the mirror, and then look at my kids, I realize nothing can stop this deadly race.  “The grass withers and the flower fades,”…is this merely the doomed existence of humanity?

I watch those parents of mine getting older with hair growing whiter, and I curse you.  I want to treasure every moment before you steal them all away, but still you seem to grow stronger by the day as they grow smaller outside, and I grow weaker inside.

And today—today I wasted too many hours trying desperately to help my girl get through her dreaded school work.   Through her tears and her arguing and eventually, her anger, we struggled hard to outdo you.

Her lessons become harder and harder as my special girl grows older because she can’t quite do it right, think it right, or mostly, just as quickly as all her friends do.  As we fought that pressure you put on us as bedtime approached, I grew angrier.  Life continues to make me feel as though I dole out one useless day for another never quite ending each day the way I hoped.

But here at the end of a long, hard night that girl of mine begged me to play her favorite song so she could sing her favorite words to Jesus:

“You gave, you gave your life away,

You gave, you gave your life away,

For me…”

 Oblivious to the moments that were forever just lost to us, she found her voice; and then with her voice and that silly smile, she rediscovered her joy.

Oh, how I envy that joy.  Instead, my frustration kept coming as I found myself wrestling, instead of singing, with Jesus over the place I find myself today.   A place of slow difficulty where you unrelentingly and harshly dictate my moments, Time, with those things that must be done.   Things I see as not so important; distractions from dreams, and places I think my family and my children should be.

Are these moments really the ones I’m destined to live?  Giving my life away?  Should it be water to my soul as much as to hers?

And in the foggiest place of my angry mind, these words come back to my heart:

“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”  Ephesians 5:15-16

I think about the wise people I know.  They don’t seem to dwell on you, chase you, or wish you to return; rather they seem to embrace you, making the most of each and every opportunity, looking forward and rarely looking back.

And then I think about the fool and how he seems mostly to waste you, Time.  Complaining, excusing, or dreaming you away until at the ragged end of his life the fool is left with nothing but a few empty dreams and heart filled with resentment and regret.

To redeem means to buy back.  Is it possible that by living for the eternal right here in the temporary, I’m buying you back, Time, in the form of forever?  Jesus said that to save your life, you must be willing to lose it, to give it away.

And His Word is His promise.

Redeeming the time.  Is this supposed to be my relationship status with you?

To see life in this fallen world as an opportunity to love and be loved, to share and be shared, to give and give our lives away because one day the grass will wither and the flower will fade in the eyes of each of us and the only thing that will matter are those treasures we’ve stored up for eternity?

Redeeming the time.  Is this supposed to be the way to resolve my anger with you?

To see each moment as a moment to value people valued by God, not value only our dreams and plans, but rather to wrap those dreams and those plans around those valuable people because each one is an eternal soul with the capacity to know and be known by God forever and always?

Redeeming the time.  Is this supposed to be how I finally make peace with you?

To stop staring at that clock and start realizing each minute is not mine to possess, but mine to redeem, to share, or, as that beautiful ten-year-old voice sang , to give away as an offering to the One who gives you, Time, to each and every one of us in exchange for our forever?  For if I seek to save it and hoard it, I will eventually lose it, both now and forever.

Maybe it’s just middle-age.

But maybe it’s that my life is half over and I want to make sure I’m living for the treasures that matter most.  Not for the things I’ve planned and the moments that will fade, but living for the losing of myself.  For His Word is His promise, so I know that not one moment given away to you as an offering, Time, will escape the redemptive hand of Jesus, but rather it will be added into my forever savings.

Perhaps I should stop spending my days cursing or chasing Time; and instead, find every way to make my peace by redeeming the Time.  Because the grass withers and the flower fades away, but the Word of my God will last forever.

And His Word is always His promise.