Time Keeper

Currently Reading
Red Moon Rising: How 24-7 Prayer is Awakening a Generation
By Peter Greig, Dave Roberts



When you sit with your hand in a hot oven for two minutes, it seems like two hours. When you sit holding hands with a beautiful girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. That, gentlemen, is relativity. ~ Albert Einstein


Yesterday is a cancelled check: tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is the only cash you have - so spend it wisely. ~ Kay Lyons

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the unlimitable Superior Spirit who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ~ Albert Einstein





We are at the ice rink early as usual, giving T. time to put on his equipment for the impending hockey game. 37 minutes to puck drop. These teenage warriors all converge on the locker room with their joking conversations, fun ribbing of each other. We parents take three giant steps back when they open the door - there is nothing in all sportsdome that rivals the gaseous stench of what can only be described as hockey funk. We love these manlings in our presence - they can be quite thoughtful and sweet deep down - but they are rank when they get off the ice, and it simply lingers within the locker room. I only have to transport one hockey player - his equipment, sweaty uniform and body can be unbeliveably pungent when you travel in a van which has heat. But that locker room keeps their collective vileness, and that from the team before, knocking over whoever dares to defy the Dante inscription over the door : "Abandon all hope ye who enter here."

They have spent a great deal of time with each other this year, with two to three practices a week and two games a weekend. They've been with each other against the toughest teams who practically skated circles around them, and those against whom they were evenly matched, sharing blow for blow, their shots on goal nearly identical. Some games were rife with penalties, tempers flaring and the desire to "teach a lesson to that number 81," whereas others went without a offending whistle. T. was so proud the day he took a giant check and it knocked out one of his teeth. But his pride was my horror - "What do you mean a tooth is out?" only to examine it was one of his stubborn baby teeth, a tiny molar who was destined to come out that day or the next. With relief, I relaxed knowing he wouldn't have a gaping grin with a front tooth missing, able to slurp his spaghetti with vigor. The Cyclones have been the tournament champions in each tournament they've skated - this has been an exceptional year! T. has acquired new friends on the ice and we have acquired new friends in the families in the stands.

Today, I am in the penalty box as time keeper.

This task is shared by all the parents twice during the season - some get to be the door handlers for the team during shift changes, others manage the penalty bench. And time keeper is another job which gets handed around.

I haven't done this yet, so I am getting some input from the previous mom, pointing and explaining, describing and giving examples. There are important details to keep in mind...there are three periods ("Show it like this", time stops and starts with the whistle only ("Flip switch here")some things are automatic,("You start this and the horn will sound, or the penalty will erase or the timeout will clear")and some are waiting for you to manipulate the.

Okay, ready, steady, go!

The game went smooth, with only one error from me. On this panel the time switch is exactly next to the horn switch - they are the same shape and color - and when I thought I was starting the time for an offsides start, I actually sounded the horn. T.'s shift was on the ice when it happened, and I swear I could hear his "Oh mom" strickly from his body language and posture. I'd like to die, just crawl under the counter and die.

Being the time keeper in this hockey game was fun and engaging, letting me be closer to the ice and more involved with the game than I typically am.
Being the time keeper in our home these past 14 days has been exhausting and challenging, demanding and necessary.

Dave has been in Wilmore KY these two weeks, completing the last J-term for his MDiv. and this has been the fifth year in a row he leaves us on Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and returns in February. He only needs to be on campus once a year, in January, and it is only for 2 weeks. Only for two weeks.

But those two weeks at home with our four children and ministry pass in a different perspective than his in classroom parameters. I encounter healthy children 50 weeks out of the year, only to have them getting sick during this 2 week time. Ear infections, flu, bronchitis - you name it, it has happened and it miraculously lifts right before Groundhog's day.

We have ministry and sports programs in our corps four nights of the week, having me with our children opening doors, pumping up soccer balls/basketballs, shagging pop flies. My daughter A. can make an amazing pot of coffee and my son N. can figure out all things electronic. My son T. is an exceptional baby sitter for 2 year olds and my daughter K. is a very well-spoken secretary, showing she can take an accurate and thorough message.

Our days have been very full, every hour jam-packed with obligations and responsibilities, fun and laughter, places to be and miles to travel to get there.

The pastoral calls of these weeks have required long conversations, explanations, an extra visit - extra time taken, spent, lavishly spread even though each minute has
been in short supply.

The sermons have been holiness.

My own college courses have required more than 1000 pages of reading, with several trips to the library.

As Albert Eistein said, how you spend your time (and with whom) can be the greatest mystery and revelation of relativity.

God gives us every minute we encounter. Today has been prepared for you like a gift, prepared in detail, protected and offered with love and grace. God has been the divine Time Keeper, opening the day with an incredible sunrise or an extreme winter storm warning. Embrace you gift of today: its minutes are fleeting, passing, ticking, perishable. Our plans, visions and advance preparations for the future, these are all important, necessary and essential - but live within the present day you have.

God knows what is in store for you today - it is not a mystery to Him. He is there with you to celebrate with you in the joy of it, or to help shoulder the entirety of the grief it bears.

Invest yourself in someone today, sharing the good news of God's love in a practical and visible way. Fill your minutes with praise to Jesus. Drive with generosity and forgiveness. Laugh with strength and joy. Call that person who has come to your mind - God has reminded you of them for a reason. Look straight into the eyes of 5 people around you and see God's beauty in them. Encourage and build up those around you.

Touch. Smile. Cry. Live.

Relish and use every minute God has entrusted to you.

"TODAY is the day that the LORD has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24