Numbering My Days

I have been thinking about time lately.

They say time heals, but each ensuing month's disappointment of a new pregnancy just intensifies the pain of our loss. It feels like we have waited 1 year for a baby.

Our church's women's group is reading through None Like Him by Jen Wilkin.

Last week's read on God's eternality was a (good) punch to my gut. Wilkin skillfully expounds the incongruity in God's vs. our perception of time:

"Free to act within time as He wills, He exists outside of it. He is simultaneously the God of the past, present, and future, bending time to His perfect will, unfettered by its constraints. [. . .] The writer of Ecclesiastes goes on to say this: 'He has made everything beautiful in its time.' [. . .] " We expect Him to make everything beautiful in our time. But the One who determines the beginning and the end does not operate according to our timelines. He will work all things according to His purposes. Every sorrow or harm we suffer will be redeemed for good. But sometimes it takes more than one lifetime for the ugly to be made beautiful. [. . .] This does not mean what God is doing is not perfectly timed. (pp. 71-72)"

Nothing happens that is not unknown to Him, and all things happen at their appointed time.

Wilkin then suggests 3 ways to redeem our time.

1. To let go of the past. This includes idolizing life before Elias, or wondering what life would have been like with Elias. "We are allowed to grieve the passing of happy seasons, but we are not allowed to resent their loss. There is a difference between missing the past and coveting the past. The antidote for covetousness is always gratitude: We can combat a sinful love of the past by counting the gifts given in the present" (p. 75).

2. To let go of the future. This includes fretting over if/when God will give us a healthy baby. "We indulge sinful anticipation when we constantly covet the next stage of life. [. . .] As with sinful nostalgia, sinful anticipation is quelled by gratitude for the gifts we have been given in the present. We feed anxiety when we live in dread of the future" (p. 76). I must put away coveting a healthy child and not under the guise of being resigned to getting pregnant again.

3. To live today fully. "Redeeming the time requires being fully present in the present. [. . .] Note the generationless, everlasting timelessness of God laid against the grass-and-flowers brevity of man [in Ps. 90:1-4]. Moses responds to this knowledge with a supplication: 'So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom'" (pp. 76, 78).

May our patient God grow in my heart contentment of my today and wisdom from numbering my days.