Borrowed Time

I am one of “those people”…I absolutely love the Rocky movies. As I think about Christmas approaching and the hustle and bustle, a line from Rocky comes to mind, “there is no tomorrow.” Rings pretty true in my mind this morning. There is no tomorrow. There really isn’t five minutes from now. There is only this moment, the one we are experiencing right now.

For one of our Christmas gifts this year we needed a photograph and began digging through my children’s memory boxes. We saw pictures of birthdays, weddings, funerals, and just day to day crazy, blessed life. As you can imagine we laughed… A LOT and often times at my big hair and Brian’s disappearing hair. J We cried a lot, too, over special memories. Faces of people we love and have lost. Memories of priceless times spent with family and friends.

What I realized though, is that time has escaped me. With Tanner now married and a father himself and Jake and Madi both teenagers, I was overwhelmed with disbelief that we have actually lived every minute of their lives and it now seems like only a few short breaths.

I can’t help wondering how Mary must have felt. From the moment that the angel announced that she would have a son, she knew that time would escape her. Her precious baby whom she cared for, taught how to walk, taught how to talk, and tucked in at night…her son who she threw the ball to, had clear the table, and watched as he walked off to school…the young man who she saw turn water to wine, silence the learned and religious and raise the dead…her son, her God, her Savior was with her on borrowed time. I wonder how she felt when she heard He had been arrested. What was she thinking as she watched the man He had become, the son that she loved, raised and worshipped be questioned and tortured?

We know she was there. As difficult as it must have been for her to watch, could she have been anywhere else? She was there the moment He drew his first breath and she would be there when He drew his last. Many of those who had followed him, who loved Him, were there. But she was His momma; there was nowhere else on the planet she would be than there, at His feet. When He was weak and hurting, He could find her. He could see the love in her eyes.

I, for one, will take a lesson from Mary this Christmas season: I will resist the urge to make gatherings “perfect” and in so doing, miss the gathering myself all together. I will not allow my thoughts to revert to the relationships that are painful or the people that I miss or the presents I didn’t buy. I will remember that “there is no tomorrow”. There is only this moment.

I will watch the glow in my family’s eyes as they experience the wonder of His majesty. I will watch for those special moments to etch in my memory as they talk, laugh and cry together. I will remember that we are on borrowed time. And they will be able to find me, in this moment, and see the love in my eyes. Where else on the planet would I be?

Merry Christmas!

My love,

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Borrowed Time

Posted on December 20, 2013 in Uncategorized

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