Making Most of No Time At All

Time is a killer. We are all withering away and, yet, we don’t value such a truth the way it demands we value it. And, still, if we do value it as we should we still have regrets.

We had 179 hours with our stillborn son’s body, yet it wasn’t enough. It never could be. But there is also the fact that what we did in those precious few hours we had with him we may only have repeated again and again because he was lifeless.

I contend that making the most of no time at all – not a literal schema – is simply about doing just that. It’s about seeing how the time slips away, irrevocably and irretrievably.

And what do we have left once that’s all gone?

The memories we have made, the trinkets kept, the sadness we retain which is surely a gift of God that makes us feel in ways to heal, and the fact we shared this experience.

As consumers of grace, we have taken this gift of both Nathanael’s little body and the time we had. We had it. We took it and had no problem making the most of it.

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We think we have time but we have no time at all.

Life changes in a split second, even though it took us decades for the abruptness to betray our attentions. Then life is a steep and steely lesson. We will all be caught out these ways at least once in our lives.

But, now, making the most of no time at all is not as easy as we think it will be.

Not all of our future problems can we foresee like the finiteness of the time we had with Nathanael. We may get our ideas of wise use of time and make a poor judgment, deploying our efforts in activities we think are worthy, but which aren’t, as is revealed later.

But there is not much use in regret, though regret comes as a function of a sad truth.

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Making most of no time at all. What are we to do?

Discerning wisely the selection and use of time, we remind ourselves that we are making an eternal choice.

Time is the gift of God’s grace for experience, and experience is God’s grace in time: an eternal gift.

Time is no spouse of regret, yet, if we lack diligence, our time comes to be united with regret eternally.

Time is the brother of experience. Such siblings take good account for one another.

Spending time with one eye on the possibility for regret is fixing the other eye on making the most of the present.

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.