Unraveled

Without Time, Life would rise up and slay us.  There isn't a body that could survive two World Wars and the aftermath of Vietnam at once.  It's too much.  What heart could endure at once the joy of several children's births?  Eyes could not cry enough tears to assuage the pain of a broken heart without many nights of a wet pillow.  The delirium of falling in love would leave us incapacitated if experienced like a wave crashing down on top of us. 

I never understood the importance of Time.  It served me in its fashion, providing terms of measurement for my life, if nothing else.  Often it crawled like a slug in no hurry when I wanted it to race.  Often it was gone before I could look it in the face.  It is fleeting, in a fickle sort of way.  They say it passes at a constant speed, but I'm not convinced. 

Trying to understand Time is like trying to see a bird's eye view of a road that you're standing on.  The best and brightest can only use their imaginations.  It stretches out behind and before us, bending and twisting to block our view.  There is no going back, and wild blooms snatched along the way quickly become dried blossoms, a relic of yesterday. 

Only God is outside of Time because only He can bear it.  He alone can take on the brunt of thousands of years of slavery, heart rending melodies and love stories in one glance.  Only He is strong enough to see the expanse of human frailty and the swelling buds of trees for a thousand springs at once.  It would be our undoing.  Our hearts would melt, and our very frames explode with the weight of a thousand sunsets. 

Count it good fortune that your grief endures many days.  You could never bear it all at once.  The deep anger, confusion, frustration and piercing pain could not be borne at once.  But God has given Time as a great softener of blows, and you are not allowed the full force of great grief.  It comes slowly.  Though it feels like your life is ebbing away with each heartbeat, you are being spared the unspeakable pain of a grief that would devour you, but for Time's staying hand.

Count it good fortune that children are born after nine months of longing.  Each day, your love for them swells a little higher, a little fuller.  The anticipation grows as they do, until it is time to meet them and let their small fingers curl around yours.  A human heart could not endure the swelling of that love in a single tidal wave, leaving a world of underwater rubble. 

Count it good fortune that Love comes on tiptoes, knocks you off your feet and carries you off a hostage.  Arresting your thoughts and rendering you vulnerable, it twirls you until you're dizzy.  Be glad it doesn't happen all at once.  Though each day be unendurably long for waiting to be together, it is better than colliding with the narcotic force of a thousand days with Love in an instant. 

Count it good fortune that books are read one page at a time, and tulips break their way through the winter ground once a year.  You could never hold the magic of a dance, the woeful cry of a Beethoven symphony and the laugh of a child at once.  The capacity of a human heart is limited, and so Time becomes the great gate, allowing one second through, never two at once, lest our mortal fabric be unraveled. 

Grateful for a God who made Time Life's sieve so our human hearts could bear it,

Little Miss Sunshine