Mexico 2013

This is where God is.  In the present.  I AM - His very name....  It's not the gifts that fulfill, but the holiness of the space.  The God in it....  This is supreme gift, time, God Himself framed in moment.  ...and time is only of the essence, because time is the essence of God, I AM.  

This I need to consecrate:  time.

Ann Voskamp - One Thousand Gifts

On our vacation, I started rereading a life-changing book that I received for Christmas a couple of years ago.  It is a book that follows a woman's journey of learning how to live a life of continual thanks and awareness of the presence of God.  It is the type of book that is easy to read when you are immersed in turquoise waters, white sands, and warm breezes.  When salt curls your hair, fish eat bananas out of your hands, and you stay up til 5:00am just because.  When you stroll through colourful markets, star gaze on the beach, and chase sand out of your mouth while wrapped in a blanket against the ocean breeze.  The words come easy surrounded by endless food, recreation and napping opportunities.  The words come easy when you have nothing but an abundance of Time.

However, it is in the returning home that the words dig a little deeper.  It is when the clock starts to count again, the rain clouds over the sky, and you take your phone off of airplane mode that the real challenge begins.  Coming home was little like being hit in the face with a brick (literally, if you consider I just had all four of my wisdom teeth out without any sedation).  It is when you open your account to 114 waiting email messages, when you are asked to add just another 10 hours to your already 65-70 hour work week, and when you feel like if one more person asks you to do one more thing you may just scream.  THAT is precisely when Time most needs to be consecrated.  

It is in the real life.  In the busy.  In the hectic.  In the mundane, and the stressful and the ordinary that Time is the most easy to lose.  And it is in the here and in the now that I am most determined to not lose it.  Nick and I are entering a season in life where we cannot slow down our surroundings, but we can slow down our hearts.  It is now, more than ever, that we need to live in EACH moment, fully aware of its being a gift from God, and fully aware of the God that takes us through every second of every day.  The hands on the clock do not offer us a racing partner.  They offer us 86,400 moments in a day to experience living life fully, where ever we are, whatever we are doing.

And as the tan peels away, as my mouth throbs from its recent extractions, as Monday morning looms, and as I miss Nick just a little bit more each hour as I have barely seen him all weekend, I sit here in thankfulness.  

I am thankful for a time away and a time of rest.  

I am thankful for great dental plans and lack of swelling.  

I am thankful that the excessive mouth bleeding has ceased.  

I am thankful that I have the means to wash the pile of bloody shirts 

in my closet should I choose to get around to doing so.  

I am thankful for pain so that I can be every more appreciative of when it stops.

I am thankful for dates with my father-in-law.

I am thankful for the chance to play on the worship team this weekend at church.

I am thankful for work that Nick loves to do and direction and purpose in his career.  

I am thankful for a great job to go to every Monday.  

I am thankful for time to write.  

I am thankful for time to reflect.  

I am thankful for life's greater purpose.

I am thankful.

I am thankful.