Day 25: Bound by time

I set my clock forward in the middle of the afternoon when everyone was busy playing. I didn't put Zander down for a nap so he'd be tired early. I made sure everyone spent the day outside in the sun.  I started our bedtime routine early. I darkened the house. Time change is a big deal in this house and I've learned how to make it easier...(sometimes)

Today,  I think it worked. I sit in the darkened room on my rocking chair as I do every night. Books have been read. Prayers have been said and sleep sounds are on. I hear breathing slowing around me. It's 8:45, but it says 9:45 on the clock. 

Ask any parent or teacher,  time changes are the WORST. It is like the very earth has shifted under their feet and they are in a constant dance trying to re-equilbrate sleep and mealtimes with ever lengthening or ever shortening days.  Naps get thrown off. Sleep regressions happen. Kids show up in your bed in the middle of the night. Snacks are requested more frequently than usual as tiny bodies try to adjust to catch up to the hour that disappeared or slow down for the one that was added. 

We are so bound to time and jetlag is our only experience that allows us a glimpse of existence outside of time. For us time bound creatures,  the experience is uncomfortable.  

I remember a flight that was 30 hours after all the layovers but it all happened on the same day. I left December 23rd at 12:01am from Bénin in West Africa to arrive home in Detroit on December 23rd at 11:44pm. I had stopped in Togo,  Morocco, Paris and New York and.. it was still the same day.  It was somehow exhausting and transcendant to see so much of the earth in so little time and still make it home for Christmas.  

God is outside time. 

I can't even get my head around this.  My joy.  My pain.  My hunger. My breath.  My life. Only exist in the present moment.  Only in step with time.  Yet,  when I climb into my memories I can visit childhood,  my wedding day and yesterday's PTO meeting almost instantaneously.  And in this,  sometimes, I find patterns, insight or wisdom.  

God is outside of time. 

I'm a little frustrated with God.

When Eddie started 6th Grade,  I began to brace myself for a change in season.  As he led my crew into middle school and on to high school, I knew the others wouldn't be far behind. My season of having small children was slowly wilting into a time of middle grade children.  

I got a notebook and began to think and pray about what this new season might be like for our family. I wanted to prepare.  What would my kids need from me? What would my daily schedule look like? Where and how should we do highschool? I wrote lists of things I wanted Eddie (and everyone else) to learn before they leave home.  I began to look at our space and try to imagine how our little house could adapt to 4 large teenage boys plopping on the furniture. 

I could sense we would come into the chapter with some major changes.  Maybe we would move.  Maybe we would homeschool.  Maybe I'd start a new career.  I haven't been sure what God was calling us too but I have been deeply sure that this chapter would be different. 

Here we are coming near the end of 8th grade.  For 3 years I've been thinking and praying,  hoping and dreaming..  and still I wait on God to point out the path.  I check out zillow Maybe weekly.  I listen to podcasts on reinventing yourself.  I've taken up spiritual direction.  I've had conversations with my pastors about possible call and discernment.  And after all of this I still have silence on the other end of the line. 

God is outside of time and yet comes to us in the fullness of time.  

Here I am,  time-bound and frustrated by daylight savings time, waiting on God and the fullness of time.