T h e C o u n t r y A u t h o r

Oh, to live in a world without time. To sleep when I’m tired and to wake when I’m completely rested with no regard to time.
There is no such world.
From the moment we’re born, time is officially recorded and our existence is forever measured in days, weeks, months, and years. We simply can’t escape time. Everything we do is influenced by when and for how long we spend doing it.
Time is precious.
Once it’s gone, we can’t get it back. While we wish we had more of it, we continue to waste it. One of the most important lessons we need to learn is how to best use the time allotted us. Time for ourselves, time for friends, time for charity, time for labor, time for family, and above all, time for God.
In order to use our time wisely, we must learn to say “no”. This has been a hard lesson learned for me. It took a bad case of stress and near melt-down for me to realize I needed to let go of a few things. Let me tell you, it’s not easy. By nature, we want to please and we don’t like letting people down. But there are only so many hours in a day and only so much energy our bodies can put out. We need our rest. I wasn’t getting much.
Things started to suffer in my life. I quit writing–something I dearly love to do. I started to resent things, even church. Not a good thing. The weather didn’t help. Here in the Northern California foothills, last winter was long, cold, and wet. Normally I like winter, but this year it really got to me. I lacked energy, motivation, patience, and heart.
Finally, it hit me. Or rather, the Lord did. In His gentle, subtle nature, He told me to let go. Let go of the things that weren’t building me up as a Christian and in turn, building up others around me. Slowly, I resigned from positions causing the most stress. When another expired, I gladly bid it farewell without looking back. I took stock of what was most important spiritually, emotionally, and physically. God comes first, I reminded myself, so I asked Him for guidance. I should have done this a long time ago. Time once again played a factor and I let it slip by. Thankfully, with God, time is not an issue. We can come to Him as we are, whenever we want. He’ll wait for as long as it takes and will take us to Himself, no questions asked.
I’m still working on making the best use of the time given to me. The long, cold winter of lost time has past and now the summer looks bright and hopeful. I’m even posting in my blog again.
It’s good to be back.