Bittersweet

So many things in life are bittersweet. You look forward to them and yet when they arrive you find yourself wondering where did all the time go? Am I truly ready? Do I really like this? So often we put so much effort into planning for and waiting for something that is in the future that we forget that the present here and now is such an amazing gift. For example my daughter has been looking forward to preschool since the end of last year when she graduated from her 3 year old class and we moved from MT to OK. Sure I too look forward to it, because this year it is free, but as I am looking forward I also realized that it is one step closer to her being all grown up.

Bittersweet, today the first day. One step closer to 5. One step closer to kinder, to high school, and college. I still remember being in grade school like it was yesterday. I remember recess and snack. I remember the alphabet and Christmas pageants. I remember each passing year and oh how I looked forward to high school. Then it was on to college, and now here I am. Too soon the leaves will turn and the summer will shed its sunshine. The winter winds will blow and another year shall pass. With each passing moment time will leave her marks. The wrinkles and gray hairs are but the passing of another year, and soon she will be all grown up.

One day I will get up to a child who no longer needs me to help her fix her hair. Potty training will be a distant memory and my sons will not want to talk about it. There favorite snacks will no longer be caramel rice cakes and honey bees. Soon they will not beg to sit on my lap and cuddle. You see time is a friend and a foe. As it passes it leaves us with great memories, but it changes us. It shapes us, molds us, and forever leaves us different.

So in my wistful wonderings I realize that time holds little sway over what is important. In thousands of years the truth will be as it was today. God's word will withstand time and his message will not be changed. Time will mold and shape the world through his will, but in time he will achieve his great plan for our world. So I will try not to plan too much. I will try not to worry and I will choose to sit back and praise him for the time that is at hand.