Being Flexible is still too Ridgid

In News by Carla

The way I see it? A coin has two sides. And I’m thinking about discontentment and how that manifests in time passing. I have a few thoughts on the struggle of experiencing the uncomfortable, the painful. Coupled with the opposite—longings to hang on to the exhilarating, the good. What happens when we hold onto the WHOLE coin in our hand? Wrapping fingers around the precious, metallic and circular object?   
During difficult or uncomfortable times in my life I would DESPERATELY wish. Hope against hope time would quickly zip past. When? After my heart was broken… but before the rawness had healed. Rediscovering yourself after a relationship is difficult.  But there is a pureness in the pain you feel that is quite beautiful. I often have to pause and reflect to remind myself what a privilege it is to be able to feel.
Wishing time would go FASTER. Oh boring jobs have I had! Ever been a cashier? Scanning endless lines of merchandise…milk…squirt gun…soda…shoes….lotion… endless items riding to you via a black nondescript conveyor belt…. Beep.  Beep.  Beep. Customers intimately, obsessively and compulsively engaged with smart phones. Perhaps words are exchanged, but maybe not. How easy it is to feel your existence really doesn’t matter in the place like that. Wishing time away. Yah, I’ve been there.
Flipping that little coin over. And over. And back again. What’s on the other side? There I find me again. This time CLINGING to time with a fanatical desire to repossess and take back! I try to reason how I could collect the sands already spilled through the hourglass and place them into the upper portion to experience again.
Vacations with family as an adult are wildly different and much more precious to me than when I was a child. Time and distance absolutely allow a greater awareness of how precious people are. My family is so important to me. Ohhh… I love them! I miss them. The time we spend together doesn’t seem to be enough. 
Where is the replay button?
Yah, I’ve wished wildly time would stop. “STAND STILL!” I would beg.
I’ve pleaded with time, promising anything in return for time to pass faster.
So what.
Well, I think these desires are applicable to anything and are a lesson in contentment. I notice that I engage better with the people in my life and the places I am in when time doesn’t loom over me. Instead of spending my time making a countdown sheet to elaborately calculate how much time I have left? I stop and take a friend out for tea when they need to talk and pray with someone. I visit with my neighbors when they ask me to come over versus doing homework straight away to engage with the time happening.  
I don’t mean that we need to forsake our responsibilities to embrace the day. Just that I find greater contentment, peace and awareness when I’m fluid. A teacher once said to me,
“Being flexible is too rigid. You got to be fluid!”  
Relationships are messy. Time is limited. I dare you to love anyway. I challenge you to make the most of the time you have and embrace the opportunities and people that come into your life. Hold time in your hand. The good, bad and less than glamorous. I believe there is beauty in each of these moments to be discovered.