Inside the 11th Hour

It consumes your thoughts. I know, you don’t want to admit it. Most of the time, neither do I because it’s

something trivial or fleeting or an idol I’ve created out of something that won’t last.

I won’t judge.

Because hear this loud and clear, I sure as heck don’t want your judgment spotlighted on me.

Stepping into this risk, I’m going to reveal what’s crept into just about every single one of my thoughts lately. Pervasive as dewy skin humidity.

I’ve been wondering about the 11^th hour. I’ve been giving too much credit to time. Time as we understand it.

Let me explain.

I’m not talking about Meg Ryan weeping on Billy Crystal’s shoulder, “I’m gonna be forty.” I am talking about this subconscious time table I have, regulating some sort of order of events in my brain. Picture a factory of clocks if you will. A factory creating a false sense of soundness and inaccurate logic.

Examples:

I hope to be published by…

I want my girls to learn this by…

I’m eager for my marriage to look like this by…

I will finally learn this by…

While you could easily call these expectations or goals (I’m a strong believer in goal-setting), I’m going to suggest they’re also linked to fruit. When you pour time and energy into something the typical consequence is that you experience evidence of time and energy invested.

Here’s the catch. The time catch.

Time is limited. Unpredictable. And sometimes time squashes fruit. Or it rots it, making those hopes and wants seem futile, if not ridiculous.

So we’re on the same page, I’m not merely referring to the seconds and days we’re granted here on earth, but the entire concept as a whole. Dreams can’t be crammed inside time. Or lessons. Or hope.

It is these thoughts that ground me when I begin to get desperate and worried things won’t come through for me in the 11^th hour. There’s still a window, I tell myself. There’s still hope. What if life is one gigantic 11^th hour? What if my faith is finding ways to come through for me all the time?

What I really want to know is when I began to let it slide—hope? When did I give time the keys to my cerebral car, hijacking hope in the process? At what point did I shove trust into a box, ordering it to stay there until I tell it to come out?

This is probably why I love reading books that bust free from the conventional ways we understand time…The Time Traveler’s Wife. Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and why I’m looking forward to reading The Repeat Year by Andrea Lochin. Also why I’m tempted to make a Benjamin Button joke at least once a week. Marty McFly, anyone?

Here’s the thing, I’m taking back the keys. I’m going to embrace the wild idea that the 11^th hour is a limitless playground of becoming and elongated saves.

Have you ever given time too much credit in your life concerning a particular situation? Could we all be living in the 11^th hour?

photo by stock.XCHNG

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.”  

-Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

8 Reasons Why Waiting is Hard

The November issue of Health reports “40% of women polled have experienced a three-hour-plus wait at their doc’s office.”

And we’re not only left twiddling our thumbs in doctor’s offices. Any of the following sound familiar? Carpool line. Grocery store. Bank. Pharmacy. DMV. Test results. Publication. And there happens to be a major holiday approaching that tends to attract diehard shoppers. Ring any bells?

Waiting is a pain in the arse. We all know this. But have you ever taken time to consider why it’s so difficult? No worries, I went there. I pinpricked the waiting process in order to test why we’re so allergic to it. And here’s what I came up with…

Comparing Carol

Carol is obsessed with measuring herself against others. She checks how quickly the line next to her is moving in Target. She plants what her neighbor plants. Determined to be found parallel with the Mrs. Jones, Carol has established herself as an expert in the art of comparison.

Word for Carol: Her race is not your race. Find your own road and go at it at your own pace.

Bored Barb

Barb’s legs bounce. Barb’s thoughts fly to pessimism. Barb texts distant relatives to keep from sitting alone with her thoughts. Barb can’t handle her own boredom.

Word for Barb: Times in wait are perfect breeding grounds for creativity to grow. Learn to appreciate stillness.

Entitlement Eva

Eva wants what she wants and she wants it now. Eva deserves it. Eva is never ever ever getting back together with you (wrong song, wrong topic, excuse the distraction).

Word for Eva: Try playing this song every so often, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Fearful Freda

Time to think equates to time to worry for Freda. One anxious thought begets another, then another. The worry train is headed for one mother of a wreck.

Word for Freda: If you must play worst case scenario, force yourself to envision yourself growing from the outcomes. God tips us off not to fear in the Bible 365 times, one for every day of the year. Must have been an important point He wanted to convey.

Busy Betsy

Betsy’s brain is busy. Betsy’s plans are busy. Betsy is so wetsy with distractions she’s left herself such a small window of downtime, if the wait exceeds her expected allotment of regimented minutes, Betsy becomes one soggy Betsy wetsy mess.

Word for Betsy: Slow down. Carve out time to do nothing—absolutely nothing. Let go of some commitments. Reevaluate priorities. Un-busy Betsy.

All-Knowing Alana

Alana knows what’s best for Alana. She’s had her future categorized and strategized on the back of a Johnny Depp poster since she was a pegged-jeans teenager.

Word for Alana: Life throws us curveballs. Ground yourself in God and expect detours. Do you still have the poster?

Now or Never Nelly

Nelly is afraid if it doesn’t happen now it never will. She’s lost a lot in life, seen it slip through her fingers, bawled as the window has slammed shut. Nelly has an irrational fear that if she’s unable to live deep and suck all the marrow out of life right now her straw will crack, the drink will dry, and she’ll have nothing left to ingest in the future.

Word for Nelly: While it’s noble to have a passion for the present, the best truly is yet to come. Every single second offers opportunity for growth. If you’re strong now, Nelly, you’ll be that much stronger in the future.

Control-Lovin’ Colleen

Colleen is best friends with Nelly, Alana, Betsy, Freda, Eva, Barb, and Carol. (Wouldn’t that be cool if those first letters actually spelled something? They don’t, but would have been cool.) Colleen is insecure. Somewhere inside she still buys that if she can just get a handle on her life and steer it, things would finally fall into place. She’d be peaceful, happy, and radiant each morning when her feet hit the floor, free of care. It’s up to her to minimize the wait. It’s always up to her.

Word for Colleen: Ultimately it all comes back to your need to control. Surrender. Trust in an omniscient God. Mei Banfa (thanks Amy for teaching me this Chinese expression) = Accept what we cannot change.

Why did I write we on that last word to Colleen? Because I can only write about Nelly, Alana, Betsy, Freda, Eva, Barb, Carol, and Colleen because I’ve waited in their shoes.

Among those I listed, who best represents your current allergic reaction to waiting?

*photo by stock.XCHNG