Knowing the Time

Today, I was sitting in the waiting room at the car dealership waiting on my inspection. The TV in the room was turned to the news...the newscasters were reflecting on what our country had gone through 18 years ago. I remember that day so well. I was sitting in English class when the principal came in over the intercom and instructed the teachers to turn on their TVs. Then, right there, before our eyes, we watch the World Trade Center crumble. Even still today, this event still breaks my heart. Then, I became distracted by my phone---truly scared me when my phone was trying to connect with my car, and my car was in the hands of the mechanic! I digress. I started looking through Facebook...like because there was nothing better to do with my social life at this immediate moment...when I came across this little video showing some of the last conversations before those planes crashed. That really shook me to the core! No, I have never been in a hijacked moment, BUT I have been at the door of eternity. That video took me all the way back to my car accident.

You see, that February morning before starting down the road, I was giving my husband this laundry list of "this & that's"---make sure you put the dogs outside; do you have your alarm clock set; your lunch is in the refrigerator. Then, my mother-in-law came in with her puppy. Bless her heart---she fretted over everything, and her list of questions was longer than my list of this & that's! We were coordinating cars and who is going to be where and where my daughter was and why the boys (my nephews) didn't ride with us and (my personal favorite to this day!) "you gonna stop at Bojangles and get me a biscuit, right?" I had made plans to take my mother-in-law to be with her daughter in the hospital, and then come home to deep clean my house, give all the dogs baths and haircuts, and finally go stay at my mother-in-law's house until my husband got home from work to swap cars. I remembered all of this. In my reflections today, I remembered all of this...and it's not important anymore. What I remember is my mother-in-law talking about how cute her great-grandbabies were; how excited she was when her granddaughter was proposed to in HER living room on Christmas Eve; how much her grandson's wife loved her biscuits; how much she loved her oldest grandson's phone conversations; how much she loved the fact her grandson would come to her house to fix odds & ends and all she had to do was fix a hot meal; how much she loved watching her youngest granddaughter play with a baby stroller that belonged to her; how much she cherished her grandson's love for antiques; how much she loved her son-in-law and me for making her laugh through our teasing; how much her son and daughter reminded her of her husband and how so proud she was of them and the lives they were building for themselves. This was our conversation for 45 minutes---nothing but pure love and happiness. When the accident took place, I could have went into a horrific scream of terror and utter panic. But, when I looked over at my mother-in-law, in that moment, I forgot about my arm being gone. I felt sad, love, and peace all at the same time. With my one hand...my right hand...I held her hand. The last thing I told her was that we loved her so very much, and we will all be okay. I was taking back to this very moment in my car accident when I watched that video on Facebook today.

My mother-in-law's pride and joy ~ her grandchildren (Mother's Day, 2017)

Ecclesiastes is one of my favorite books in the Bible. Listen to this...

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There's a time for everything in life. Some of those times we like; some we wish never took place. In my mother-in-law's final moments, it wasn't a time to worry and fret. Sure, we had every human reason to do so. We were on our way to be with my sister-in-law as she underwent a very scary surgery as a result of cancer. We could have been fret-warts on that trip, but we were not. It was a time to laugh - a time to embrace. What happened in my car was the scariest thing I ever experienced, yet it was also the most humbling moments of my life.

While I was laying in the room at the ER, I remember hearing the panic coming from the staff working on me. You see, most of them were late getting to work because traffic was stopped for a car accident---mine. Over the panic, I heard this long deep clacking sound coming down the hall. I know that sound anywhere; my husband was here. When he stepped into my room, I saw the look of helpless fear in is tear-filled eyes. Then, not too far behind him came my worried mama. I knew what I was about to tell her was going to crush her to the core and squeeze an even tighter grip on my husband's heart. In that moment, I could have easily gone into sheer panic and rambled off the micro-minuet details of what I just experienced. But, it wasn't the time. I took my mama's hand and begged for her to know and understand that I was okay. In that same breath, I told her about my arm and my mother-in-law. It amazes me the strength God gives to each one of us in different situation. Seeing my mama's heart break and my husband's world shaken, God gave me the strength to be strong. My world was shaken when I wrecked my car, but my heart was shattered trying to tell them what happened.

I shared all of that to say this: time is not in our hands; it's in God's hands. Acts 1:7 tells us that it is not for us to know times and seasons...that is under God's authority. But if you take just a moment to think about on the different times in your life and how you reacted, you will find that often times, the way YOU would have reacted is so different from what you really did. Honestly, let's think for a moment, had I known about that truck coming across the interstate at the same time my car would be going through there, would I have driven that direction...would I have even been on the road that day? If time was in our hands...if we knew what God knows, we would be changing the orders of the universe to keep that one situation from taking place. Proverbs 16:9 says, "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps." I am so glad the Creator of the universe is in control of my steps...my time!

"I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him." Ecclesiastes 3:14