Marks

Time is an elusive companion.  I often find myself checking to see where time is, has gone, or might be.  I know I cannot control it, yet there is part of me which tries to manage it regardless.  I also know that special moments in my life have been tagged in time.  Even when I forget the reference (day, month, year, hour, or minute), the specifics of that moment stand tall.  I often find myself checking my marks; is there more to be done, have I accomplished all that I wanted to, have I travelled far enough?
 
As I gray I find myself appreciating and treasuring time in a way I never imagined.  When I am walking and find myself in a moment of beauty and awe, maybe just a color streaking across the sky, or a view of the mountains with their promises of snow, I intentionally try to sear that moment in time.  It isn’t just beauty, moments with family and friends, instances where our heart’s greatest hopes and longings emerge to touch another, and quiet periods where I realize I’ve seen God in my life; each tags my life in the context of time.  I hope I always remember.  I hope I will carry the emotions of love, awareness, and appreciation with me.  I hope time’s marks will be a tattoo I carry and wear with pride.
 
I know time slips, history is written, and memories are lost.  When I read of the past, even something as monumental as what happened “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, [when] Sennacherib king of Assyria made war on all the fortress cities of Judah and took them,”  (Isaiah 36.1) I wonder; was kind of day was it?  Did the King know it was coming?  Did the people?  What could have been done?  Given what was now here, what should be done now?
 
Ironically the questions for the past are the same ones today.  Do we treasuring our marks in time?  Do we know what’s coming?  Are we prepared and willing to live in this moment?