Two recent events have caused me contemplate the concept of times and timing. The first was losing power last night to a monsoon storm that was truly incredible! (The details will be coming in another post of his and her perspectives.) After getting some candles lit we sat in the living room with our kids trying to help them grasp life before electricity. I couldn’t help but think about all those moms of yesteryear who experienced life daily without most every convenience I enjoy. Simpler doesn’t equate to easier.
This process got me on a roll thinking about the timing of my own life and how grateful I am that I was born in this time and not in generations past. Don’t get me wrong, I have a huge fascination with history and the way things were in their prime, but I’d rather see it on a sight-seeing vacation where I could just bounce through the various times and places. The thoughts of life without a flushing toilet, shower, sanitary supplies and washing machines make my stomach churn.
Then I got to thinking about how much of our lives function on power and electricity. I told my husband what a crazy thought it would be to imagine life if the power never came back on. He simply replied he couldn’t even go there because his whole life revolved around it. It’s true – the world as we know it would be a completely different place instantly without electricity. It would still exist but everything would change.
The second thing that got me thinking about times and timing was a post I read this morning on Kammie’s blog. When I read her comments on waiting for the right time for things I couldn’t help but reflect on my own experiences. In the book I’m working on about my journey to motherhood I share something I learned about myself and perhaps women in general. That is that we are master planners. Most of the time we don’t even realize that we’re doing it or that we’ve done it. It’s in our nature. So we come up with what I call “little calendars” for our lives. We get a plan when we are a youth about when we’ll marry, what he’ll be like, how many kids we’ll have – even what we’ll name them, where we’ll live, etc., etc., etc. Of course at the time it’s all just girl talk with other girls our just in our own heads. But what’s happening is we’re creating our own timelines for our expectations. And the downside of this is creating a prison cell for ourselves when our expectations aren’t met. It is so easy to get wrapped up in all the things we don’t have or that are going wrong. We feed the problem.
I speak from experience. I got married to the right man at the age I had calendared in my head. So I didn’t realize for a while that there were any problems with my calendar or life expectations. But motherhood was just beyond my reach and control. More here than I can share in one post, but suffice it to say the master lesson was learning that my timeline is not always the same as the Lord’s. It was a journey to self discovery that taught me a lot. The more you try to force the two to line up the more frustration and agony you create for yourself. It isn’t until you recognize the problem and that you are feeding it that you can shift your navigation and energies. When you begin to feed the opportunities life takes on a whole new view. You recognize that your prison is self made and therefore you can release yourself by choice.
Women of yesteryear were likely much more like we are today than we realize. Times have changed true, but timing education is universal and timeless. I have a deep and sincere gratitude for my ancestors who’s contributions and sacrifices have given me everything I enjoy today. Hopefully I’ll be able to do the same things for future generations by applying the same traits of contribution and sacrifice in my own life. Maybe, just maybe someone somewhere today will read this and get something out of the truth that comes about timing. Maybe they’ll start a path to peace and fulfillment because they’ll step back and evaluate their own “calendars” and make adjustments to get and keep them on the path of happiness. Or maybe they’ll just continue on this path with a little more fuel in their soul to win the race. ;o) Whatever your circumstance here’s to starving the problems and feeding the opportunities using the tools of times and timing to succeed.
Technorati Tags
FYI Family Sharing Organizing Emotions Positive Impact Potential Inspiration
