Time is Running Out

Time is running out.

I have either said this or ran this thought through my head multiple times this week. We have arrived at that point of summer where the days before the debut of the new school year are numbered. I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but this is just a reality that comes upon us all. 

The pit of my stomach seems to respond first to this reality. An anxiousness leaps forward each time I say or think it. I want the excitement to burst forward and outweigh the not so fun emotions, but it takes a certain self-control to try to navigate this. It doesn’t matter that my kids have been going back to school for 14 years, it is still a cyclical sadness that summer is slipping away, dosed with a reality that my children are getting older. 

With time running out before the new school year, my mind takes a unproductive wander toward what is left to do and what hasn’t happened yet. The dinner with friends that didn’t get scheduled. One more sleepover for my daughter. All the bouquets of flowers from the garden I wanted to deliver. Days left for school shopping. Those projects we wanted to tackle this summer.

When I take a step back and re-read that paragraph, I think I could write a very similar paragraph every summer at this time. What I’m feeling now is not a novel feeling! When I look at this scenario through a wider lens, I see a normal, seasonal feeling. We all experience situations where time is running out - before the new school year, before an event, before a due date. This acknowledgment of knowing my friends, my coworkers, my fellow neighbor has, is, or will be experiencing this feeling of time running out brings me a bit more peace. I’m not alone in this feeling, and neither are you.

Take for example, Ferris Bueller and his desperate race against time on his day off. Can you imagine what that race home must have felt like for him? And let’s not forget about Marty McFly. His was a race against time in order to travel time! Lining up the temperamental DeLorean with a bolt of lightning while driving 88 miles per hour before time ran out makes my concerns look small.

Maybe by focusing on other time-running-out scenarios, it makes your situation less stressful. (Probably not, but it could have been a decent distraction.) The truth is, time is always running out. There is a finite amount of time for everything we do here on earth. That reality becomes especially inconvenient for me when I have things to do. 

So what do we do when time is running out? Knowing that others are going through a similar feeling can help bring us out of our own feelings. Praying for the grace and peace that God desires for us is also a good, simple petition. I recently read about the virtue of patience and gained a new appreciation for what it can bring us. Patience is a subvirtue that falls under the cardinal virtue of Fortitude. Patience "moderates our sorrow, safeguarding a clear mind in the midst of life’s difficulties.” Patience can prevent us from being dis-couraged, from losing courage. It helps keep us on the path of pursuing what is good and helps us endure the difficulties, such as time running out. (The Art of Living, Edward Sri)

I am praying for the grace and peace you need right now. May extra patience arrive at the right time, even as time runs out.