It’s Time

For the past 90 days, my family has been living and doing ministry in North Wales. At the start of summer Brian made the comment to me that he wanted to be intentional about our experiences here. We didn’t want to get to the end of summer and think, were did all our time go? We wanted to know that our time here was used wisely and that it accomplished something.

Well, we are at the end of the summer and we are saying, “Where did the time go?” We have had some awesome experiences and truly loved our time here, but it has gone so fast and we still have so much we would love to do.

I am starting to develop a strong dislike for time. This week I made a list of all the dreams I would love to accomplish if time and money were not an obstacle. I wasn’t sure what I was trying to learn from the exercise, but when I got to the end I noticed one glaring truth. Almost all of the items on my list were time related instead of money related.

I try so hard to be organized with my time. I make weekly spreadsheets of our families schedule, I make daily to-do lists, and I try to establish routines. Do I waste time? Oh yeah, I can be really good at wasting time. But for the most part, I try to use my time wisely. So why is there never enough time to do all that I want to do? 

I’m coming to realize something about planning my time. It’s not so much making our moments worth something by planning them out, as giving our moments to God and letting Him make them worth something. The items on my list revolved around my husband, kids, and ministry. They weren’t bad things at all. But they were my things. I am now laying that list of goals I made out before God and praying for Him to direct me to which ideas of my own are worth pursuing. 

On the way to camp at the beginning of the month, our bus full of 40 teenagers and counselors witnessed a man jump off a bridge and take his own life.   As a mother I have had the awesome privilege to witness life come into the world on two different occasions. Birth is such a beautiful reminder of how precious and special life is. Death is different. Death is a reminder as well. Death is a reminder that this precious and beautiful life has numbered days.

I feel so honored that God has allowed our family to spend the past 90 of those numbered days in the beautiful country of Wales doing ministry. I have lost count of the times Brian and I have looked over at each other and said in awe, “This is real life, we actually live here!” God has given us amazing opportunities to impact eternity while we have been here.  He has given us precious family time and irreplaceable memories. Our prayer is now that we will be able to come back quickly and with long-term visas. If I know one thing about time though, it’s that I’m not in control of it. So before I get carried away with my plans, I will take time to remind myself to give them over to The One who is in control.

Rebekah