We live in a time when time itself can become nothing more than a placeholder, assisting our overwhelmed minds in remembering appointments, celebrations, losses, and due dates.
We attempt to frame hours to fit our schedules, testing whether we can bend a minute into two, or begging the hands of a clock to turn back so we can redo a second that changed everything.
What’s done becomes timestamped; what is to come lives somewhere between imagination and the unknown. Both ends of the continuum have time just out of reach.
As such, only this moment can be lived, and we know far too well that the clock will keep moving long after our own expiration.
Still, many cheat today by having an affair with yesterday and stealing trouble from tomorrow.
One of the purest gifts we have is this very moment; and yet, we act as if it is not enough.
Facebook recently resurfaced a photograph from 13 years ago of family and friends at the deer lease. I had no idea then that, just a few years later, gathering those same people together would never be possible.
I stared at the photo long enough to forget about tomorrow’s concerns. I had to catch myself from lingering too long in the past, but I confess the moment captured came back as if it were still pulsing. I could hear the laughter, even feel the heat from the coffee cup I was holding (not to mention the pain of a cactus spine).
I clicked away from the photograph, but both the fondness and sadness remained for a few hours. More than anything, I was thankful for time well spent. But I was also keenly aware of my arrogance, moving about as if the people I care about would remain as surely as the sun would rise.
How many times have I listened to friends and family with my eyes on them but my mind elsewhere? How many times have I heard my loved ones move about me like noise rather than the most important people in my life?
In Matthew 6:34, Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow.
I often consider that instruction when I need relief from worry, but less often when I need to examine what my worry is taking from someone else.
Someone who is trying to tell me about their day.
Someone I prayed for, now standing in front of me, waiting for me to put down whatever seems so important.
I cannot ask God for more time with the people I love while continually giving them the leftovers of my attention. And yet, I suppose I have done just this very thing many, many times.
The photograph made the contradiction difficult to ignore.
There is nothing wrong with visiting a memory. I am thankful that God allows a little laughter to find its way back to us, even if bittersweet.
But there are people I can still hear laughing without having to return to a photograph. They are around me today. I just need to look up and truly see them.
Lord, help me to be fully present.
This column was originally published by CherryRoad Media. For more faith-based columns and inspirational writing by Tiffany Kaye Chartier, follow her on Facebook. Her devotional collection “The 4-Minute Reset: For Cultivating Peace, Purpose, and Positivity” is available on Amazon and other major online retailers.
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