When it is Time, it is Time

As I ran on our beautiful pathfinder today, I took in the new sights of Spring arriving. The birds’ songs have become loud and vociferous, as blue jays, cardinals, and scissor tails, swoop, and dance from the tree branches. I heard a woodpecker overhead, a fantastic, intriguing sound, that everyone should get the privilege to hear. 

The grass has started to turn green and a few redbud trees have started to bloom. The ivy that twists around so many trees have begun to turn green, as they twist and swirl around tree trunks. Many trees are still without leaves, but you can see the green is beginning to overtake the landscape from the ground up.

Watching the seasons on the pathfinder is such a marvelous thing. It makes you wonder; how do they know it is time? How does the ivy know it is now time to grow its green leaves and begin life anew? How does the redbuds know it is time to bloom? Who told the blue jays to sing their songs and find their mate? 

I think nature and our natural world is our great teacher. If we will stop, listen, and observe, it has so much to say.

I have been through many, many seasons in my short life yet I seem to need to be reminded often of this lesson over and over again which is, when it is time, it is time.

Recently my 9-year-old told me “Mom, I am ready to just get on with my life!” I said, “what do you mean?” He said, “I want to be in high school, playing basketball and I want colleges to recruit me and I want to go onto the NBA. I just feel like I am waiting for my life to start!”

“Oh, baby, everyday matters.” I said “this is all part of your life, right now your life is to enjoy being a kid, to keep training with daddy, to play and enjoy basketball. You work with all your heart and learn and grow. What you are doing today matters, this is all part of it.”

Do you ever feel like my 9-year-old, like you are waiting for your “life” to start? Or waiting for the next thing? Waiting to see the dreams in your heart fulfilled, or that job promotion, a relationship to come along, or a new career you have been pursuing? I am a dreamer, a romantic, and a visionary. Pinterest’s tagline “So many dreams, too little time,” could totally be my life motto.

Yet the forces of nature keep showing me, “when it is time, it is time.” There is NOTHING we can do to rush a process, to manipulate or coerce things to move at our timeframe. Nothing.

There is a beautiful picture of this in the story of King David in the scriptures. David was anointed to be king when he was about 15 years old. It took 15 years before he took the throne. During that time, King Saul became what we might call mentally ill, he started pursuing David to kill him. There came a moment when David had the opportunity to kill Saul and David would have been justified. David’s men/friends were encouraging him and quoting scriptures and telling him this is your place, your time, take it, God has called you, kill him! David snuck up and cut a corner of Saul’s robe off. After he did it, he felt tremendous guilt, for he knew he had been instructed by his God to not lay a hand on Saul.  (1 Samuel 24)

Isn’t this life. We have something we know we are called to do, or an urge inside us so strong that tell us, this is what you were created for, this is your path, your calling, your dream, your career, and people around us will encourage us, “go take it! Go do it, push your way forward, and take life by the horns!”

Then… there is this thing about the seasons and when it is time, it is time. There is no pushing, rushing, or manipulating. It is just time. You can’t cut corners. Every step, every season, every heartbreak, every lesson, every opportunity, every relationship, every conflict, every death, every joy, every tear, matters. 

Over the last few years, I have tried to shift my focus from the things I want to pursue and have tried to focus on the woman I am becoming. The kind of person I want to be, the kind of life I want to experience and live.  Because at the end of the day, all I bring into any space is who I Am.

When you focus your energy on who you are becoming, all of a sudden what is meant to be yours comes. When I look back over my life, I see my worthless toiling, turning, and worrying and then I see the answer just come. It lands in my lap, the path is enlightened, the way is made clear, and not because I made it happen, just because it was time. My time. 

My darling, it is true, great things come to those who wait, because the law of the universe says, “you can’t cut corners.” There is no way around Spring, it must run its course to usher in the heat of Summer.  You can relax, for you cannot miss what is meant for YOU. When it is time, it is time.