As this little one came close, looking up into my eyes, my heart filled.
“Grammy?” …He waited…
“Will you sit with me?”
My heart melted…
“Of course I will, sweetheart.”
Timidly he asked, “Will you hold me?” Precious!
How do I give any other answer beside “YES” when I can see it’s what he really needed at that moment? It’s imperative to let this dear one know his Grammy hears him; that I will lay aside what I’m doing to spend some snuggle time together with him.
I purposely ignored the long list of “must do’s” staring up from my planner that was silently demanding it should be my first priority. IT’S NOT…
TIME…it’s like GOLD. To us, we view it as something we need to guard. We watch over our calendars, governing them like each moment is OURS TO KEEP and to use only as we see fit. After all, it’s OUR TIME isn’t it? We’re the ones who have to be responsible, making sure we get to all the things on our “TO DO” list!
To our grandchildren, (our “LITTLES” we call them), they hope we’ll give it away…TIME, that is…although they’d never ask for it. Then we have our “BIGS”. A few of our BIGS…it seems like they approach me with hope that if what they want to tell me sounds interesting enough, I may stop what I’m doing to join them for a few minutes. This hurts my heart…that they’d have to even consider thinking of a way to draw me in.
To have a “tween” and a teen want to spend time with me…hesitation shouldn’t even be part of my thought process. Yet it is, if I can be honest.
In reality, in the scheme of things and what really matters, the wheel I’m presently running on needs to stop immediately. I need to climb down and bring to a halt whatever it is that has me engaged at the moment.
I wonder if some of you, my dear readers, are feeling frustrated and find yourselves saying,
“Yeah?? You don’t live my life! You’re retired! What do you know about being busy! You have no clue what my schedule looks like!”
Oh my goodness! My plate, too, is often beyond full if I allow it to be! So I do understand your dilemma and I know that there are times when stopping isn’t an option. For me when that happens, I make sure I've finished whatever it is I’m doing at the moment. Then I search for the kids and give them my full attention. Presently that’s easy to do because they’re between houses, living with us for a season, which has been a real treat!
So is there anyone who struggles to find enough time to do what REALLY MATTERS? Not only the things that are a concern for the here and now, but also what matters to God’s heart and what will matter for eternity?
It’s certainly my story. Time can be a bit of a struggle for me. Actually not time itself, but my perspective of it and how I can often have the temptation to think that I’m not doing as much as I should be doing on any given day. Might it be your story too?
Maybe searching out how God views time will help us overcome our guilt regarding how we use it and how we don’t! We then can begin to view the beautiful gift time really is.
When I was pondering on this, I remembered a book I read over twenty years ago, “A Place Called Simplicity”. I decided to check my bookshelf to see if it was still there. Sure enough! There it was, sitting among the books on my shelf. With a worn cover, the pages all marked up with my hand-written notes and highlighters of various colors, I lifted that little, cherished volume off the shelf and began to thumb through it.
I remember that the author, Claire Cloninger, talked about something that struck a chord with me so many years ago. It made me think of my time spent with my grandson today. The book is about her personal move to begin living a simple life, what that looks like, and how she attained it.
SIMPLICITY, and what a life like that entails, has always been a huge draw for my heart.
One of my favorite things she mentioned that intrigued me then, and I have a strong sense of it in my day-to-day moments now, is the difference between the two kinds of time:
CHRONOS time is our time that can be “measured by the hands of a clock and the pages of a calendar,” says the author.
KAIROS time is God-breathed moments that can seem TIMELESS; “an unhurried quality of life” when we allow God to bring His plans into our moments throughout our days.
True to my heart, that’s what Cherishing Ordinary Days is all about~ embracing the beauty of everyday moments! So here I was, experiencing first-hand the beauty of KAIROS moments, given by the hand and heart of God to me personally! As I held my grandson I wondered how long it would be before he feels he’s “too big” to sit on my lap.
He often says to me,
“You love me to the moon and back, right Goga?” I assure him that he’s right and he says to me…”I love you, Goga.” Then I say to him…“And I love you, too, my dear boy!”
He’s three and a half years old…he’s been here on earth so briefly…yet he has a heart that truly loves. He loves me without reservation. He teaches me how to love and what love truly looks like each and every time I am with him.
So today I’m grateful I let life slow down a bit…
and I held my precious boy for a while and we chatted
and I told him,
I will ALWAYS love him… to the moon and back!
And he said to me with so much love in his sparkling eyes…
”I love you, Goga!”
…and my heart filled and then it melted…
On this journey together, Deb