Time: It passes all too quickly
Time. Do you ever want it to just slow down?
Sitting in bed between my sleeping husband on one side and our sleeping daughter in her crib the other, considering how much I love being able to share my nights them both, a realisation hit me. It was the realisation that we’re already five months into parenthood and the days of all sharing a room and our nights together won’t last forever.
Before long the baby at my side will be spending her nights in the cot in her nursery. And then, in the blink of an eye, it’ll be time to replace the cot with a bed.
Time passes quickly.
Whether it’s parenthood, childhood, holidays or just the passing of life, good times seem to fly by all too soon. It’s a cliche spoken to most new parents that they should “savour every minute” (and believe me, I’ve done my best to savour even the puke-covered, poop-filled minutes) but, however much you try to do that, they still whizz by at breakneck speed.
Before you know it you’re looking back wondering where you newborn went, or where your youthfulness went, or, in my husband’s case, where your hair went.
It’s good to look back with fondness on the good times and experiences we have had in our lives. There will undoubtedly be times we’d rather not remember but the happy times, from a great holiday to a baby’s first cry, call on us to treasure them.
That savouring comes with a risk, though, because all the time we’re looking back at memories of times gone by, we risk stopping ourselves focusing on the here and now or looking forward to the things to come.
But there’s good news for us. Whatever we do, the Bible, in Psalm 31, verse 15, makes it clear that, “My times are in [God’s] hands.” My times, Charlotte’s time, all in His hands. Whether we’re looking back over times gone by, doing our best to savour life in the moment or considering days that might be to come, God is in control of it all, even when time seems to be whizzing by so quickly that we can barely keep up.
Psalm 139, verse 16 tells us, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
All we need to do is make the best we can out of each and every day we have, however quickly they might whizz by.
Sarah Moore is the author of For the Love of Lentil, A journey of longing, loss and abundant grace, which tells the story of her experience of pregnancy and miscarriage. Copies of the book are available here.