The Wading Pool

Time is a funny thing.  When we’re waiting for something to happen, or come along, time seems to drag like my daughter when I ask her to clean her room.  When that something that we’re waiting for finally arrives, time is suddenly Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona.  It’s crazy how fast it goes.  Yet whether fast or slow, there is a substance to time, a weight, a worth, and you don’t have to be a physicist to realize that.  Look at how we seek to manage time, to make the most of what we have, to cram in all that we can.  We all know it’s important, we all know it matters, we all know it’s precious.  I was hit with this again last week, the second week in the month of June.  For many reasons, it’s a week that has become very important in the life of my family, so you’ll forgive me if I go on  about it for a moment.  This will be a long blog, even by my standards.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Seven years ago, the second week of June was the worst week of mine and Amanda’s lives.  It was that week that we, nearly 6 years of marriage behind us, went to the doctor, full of excitement over the baby that we were newly expecting.  A day that we expected to be full of joy instead turned to pain as we were told the heart-wrenching news that our baby had died.  We went from the mountaintop to the valley in a matter of seconds, and it was a hard fall.  My faith shook.  Our faith shook.  I can remember holding my wife and trying to make sense of this, wondering where God had gone.  Had I done something to cause this?  Was it my sin?  Why was this happening to us?  It was a time of intense tears and heartache.  It hurt.  And still does, to an extent.

But in the midst of that God began to work in my heart, and in Amanda’s heart.  He began to peel away layers of ritual that had accumulated in my life, and layers of bad theology that I had ingested.  He began to heal us both, in ways that I don’t think we even realized we needed.  It was in the aftermath of this great loss that the Lord brought us, in His time, to our church.  It was then that, through His Word, He began to remake us, to shape and form and correct all that was twisted.  He began the process that He’s still doing.  But my point is:  it was born out of pain.  It was born out of the hardest time in our lives.

After the miscarriage, we tried for nearly two years to have a baby, to no avail.  “Other options” were beginning to be discussed by our doctor.  And then, out of the blue, a positive test!  We were expecting again.  I really can’t tell you the emotions that caused in us both!  Sheer joy is not too great a phrase to describe it!  Our baby was due the first week of June, but as the Lord (not luck!) would have it, she was born the second week of June.  Can you believe that?  I remember standing in the hospital room holding her, fighting back tears, as the realization that God makes all things new hit me.  A week that we dreaded each year for the pain it brought back was now a week full of joy, every year.

My “baby” girl turned five this year, last week, and it’s definitely been one of those “where did the time go?” moments for us all.  She’s changed so much from the little cuddler that we brought home “all those” years ago.  I find myself at times wishing the clock could slow down, that I could just stay in this moment for a while, though I know that’s foolishness.  But, in a way, the clock did turn back for a moment last week.  You see, as if to remind me again (because I am one forgetful man), the Lord decided to bless us yet again on this second week of June.

Meet Little D #3:

I’m coming to realize more and more that time is in His hands, not mine.  And that His timing is always perfect.