Life is too short. Just before nap time today, Bright asked if I wanted him to read me a book. Though he can read a few words, when he says "read a book" he means "recite a book," - you know how that goes.So we all snuggled into our eggplant-purple corduroy couch (Bright, Zion, and I) and let Bright "read" his pop-up book of nursery rhymes. Zion kissed us both over and over, as is his habit, and I ran my fingers over Bright's blond buzz cut, taking it all in. The sound of my three-year-old's voice saying, "Hey little diddle" and "Piddle Po Peep." The faint smell of Zion's diaper, which needed changing. The way Bright's little thumb rested on the edge of the page, a thumb which was rounded out with toddler pudge just months ago, but is now taking boyish shape.
Recently I heard a very freeing thing about time. A speaker at our latest conference said that "chrono" refers to some kind of mythological character/god that eats his children. We see it that way a lot of the time, don't we? Chronological time is eating our children, eating our youth, eating our health, eating our lives away day by day. But then the speaker said that we shouldn't fall into the same trap of thinking as humans in times past have done. Time is not eating us, but rather offering us itself, like a gift. If I can see time as something sweet, a partner with the Creator, a force that is investing in my children and not devouring them, then I can find freedom in the passing of these days. It is not something to grieve, but rather something to embrace and watch with wonder and delight.
