Time, time, time.

With Thanksgiving coming up this week, it's beginning to sink in that December is actually the month after November (incredible, I know), and that Christmas time will come and go and then, why, what do you know, but January is after December! You may think that all this is rather obvious, but I've oft observed that it's the obvious that surprises us and shocks our monotonous systems. 

It's raw and real stuff that brings us to our senses. Raw, like whipping wind and willful cold. Real, like people leaving and people coming. Shriveling death and struggling newborn life. Oh, this life. 

This January I'm going to the Dominican Republic on a ten day, medical missions trip. I'll be with my parents and I honestly don't know what we'll do, but God does, and that's all that matters. What I do know is that He is taking us there for a purpose, one that I'm sure we cannot comprehend at this present moment. I study Spanish in anticipation for this trip, I pray for the people that I'll meet, knowing that they'll change me more than I'll change them, and I rest in the uncertainty of everything. It's an assured uncertainty, because I can be assured that God is good in the midst of a lot of uncertainty. 

But just like these next ten days will come and go, so will the ten days there, and we'll be back, by God's grace, and we'll continue to live the next ten days, and the ten days after that till another year has passed and time continues going on. What sets those days apart though is that they are to be stewarded for the Lord. We're allotting our time and giving it to His control. But, when you think about it, that doesn't have to be an event isolated to a missions trip in the Dominican. No...in all reality, that experience can happen here. We can choose to steward our fleeting, flying time and let the Lord control it and give us the opportunities to show His love, or we can let it all fly by and wait around for something to happen to us. 

In this time of whir-whir-whir, wonder-at-how-time-flies, we speed up so fast and we need to just halt. and realize that it's about worship of God-Incarnate, giving thanks to God-the-Time-Giver, and submitting our lives to His care by using the gifts He's giving us to give to others. 

We'll make resolutions too...and we'll make mistakes and January will start and leave. It's just best to look at all of this right now, so that we can appropriately face the events in their actualization. We can't plan everything, and we shouldn't. But we can ask ourselves if we're devoting ourselves to delight in the Lord, if we're celebrating Him, or our own humanity, if we're letting Him control all our holiday hubbub, or spinning out of control. 

Time is always going, and we have a choice as to how we'll use it; how we'll use the next ten days and how I'll steward my time in the Dominican, it's all important to consider and I pray that we don't lose sight of what's important in all of this rush-time. 

Because in February, God's the same God, the same Time-Giver, the same Life-Giver, Who we should bow down to, giving all thanks and praise to Him. 

I love Him.