Growing up on a farm in North Dakota provided a life according to the seasons. Being able to predict with fair accuracy what was going to happen next in our lives was fairly easy. The seasons provided the change needed to usher in the next set of required work and play choices. The only sport that many farm kids played was basketball because it was played during the winter months. The need for us to be working in the field was less with snow on the ground and freezing temperatures. The spring brought on the rush to get the crops in the ground while fall was the harvest time. With all of this order determined by nature all that was left for people to do was comply with all that was needed for each season.
That doesn't mean that life was slow and always predictable. Life was a bit of both but never at the same time. Birthing season for our animals was a rushed event and the time before and after were seasons of not much to do. The animals pretty much took care of themselves. The same was true for the planting season. Preparing for and the planting of the crops was time sensitive. Planting too soon or too late were potentially disastrous. The time before and after were slowed down as nature pretty much took care of itself.
My first life experience outside of the farm came with my moving out of the home and away to college. My first job paid $1.60 per hour and I was at the mercy of my employer as to how many hours I could work. Between going to school and working my time was taken up. Little did I know that after leaving the farm my work, school and other obligations would eat up most of my time. It soon became apparent that without my hours of daylight (and sometimes night time also) filled with something that I felt a sense of wasting my time.
It wouldn't be until many years later when I suffered an injury that took me off work for 6 months that I first came to understand and engage time off. After those 6 months I went back to work for another 6 months before I was injured again. This time I wouldn't be going back to work with 7 major surgeries to repair all the damage I had done to my body over the years. What happened?
Life had happened according to plan. My life had been set on "fast and full" for so long that I literally wore parts of my body out. It wasn't until I was off work for those first 6 months that I had any idea of how driven and focused my life had become. Life was fast and kept getting faster until that time that God slowed me down. I don't mean that He had injured me; that was my doing. I mean he allowed my "fast" life to take its toll on me.
In December of 2001 I was working at my "fast and full" life when I went to see my doctor on my way home from work. I was concerned about the chest, left arm, neck and jaw were hurting. Once hooked up and confined to a hospital bed reality began to set in. I didn't have a heart attack. Thank you God! I did have a reality check. Still, it would take until February 2006 before I would really take a good look at my life. Time was going by at an incredible pace and I was merely a passenger on the rocket.
As humans, we tend to think in comparisons. Often our "normal" view of things is really dictated by the skewed definition we live by. I thought all kids grew up with the same conditions as I had. I thought I was doing life as everyone else was doing life thus it had to be normal. Time was irrelevant. Time wasn't seen as a friend or an enemy. Time was what others wasted and I used to the best of my ability.
All of my preconceptions about life and time came to a screeching halt June 13, 2009. I woke up from surgery paralyzed from my waist down. Talk about a nightmare! Again, laying in that hospital bed for days on end I had a chance to let God show me what his "time" and "life" was really supposed to be. Problem was that I didn't want to hear Him. I was driven by anger and depression. Sitting here typing this blog today I have a different focus on my life thanks to God for slowing down my life so that I could live.
I now have roses that I actually literally smell. About 14 rose bushes in all. They all smell good. I'm 61 now and no longer am that 21 year old who was invincible. Life hasn't changed. I have changed. I'm seeing and experiencing life as it was meant to be (most of the time) and enjoying some of the slowed down part more and more. I recovered (for the most part) from the paralysis and can walk. Damage to the nerves from my waist down are a daily reminder that I need to slow down.
I believe that after your 21st birthday there should be only 3 candles on your cake. The first candle is for yesterday and all that it contains. The second candle is for today to be enjoyed fully as God intended. The third candle is for tomorrow and all that it holds. In order for us to make it to the third candle we need to remember the lessons of living life too fast and choose to live today in such a way that there is a tomorrow.
That's the way God would want it.
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