Perfect timing . . .

 

This Time

To everything a season, a time for every purpose under heaven

and yet this time out of all other times is special

A moment of grace,

A Kairos time,

A time for urgency when there is no time

A window opened on eternity where all is possible

For those with eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand

A time to risk all that has not been risked before

so that we might flow with all that God intends.

 

A time to seize because it will not come again.

A time to place our lives where words have been.

A time for bridges to be built and others crossed, and others burned,

because there is no going back.

A time to leave the past behind because the present, this precious “now,”

is Holy Ground and from it the future beckons.

To leave the past, and not to do so lightly.

To take it out and dare to look and name what has been done and cannot be undone.

 

To allow the pain to surface.

To give voice to silent wounding, that, hearing, and being heard,

we might with due and holy reverence allow the dying to take place,

and, picking up the pieces that give life, to travel on;

our burden now a cleansed and sanctified inheritance;

one that puts into our step a spring and into our hearts

a flame of hope that cannot be extinguished.

 

This time so fragile and so priceless, gift of God to you and me

to grasp and to embrace, to give it all we’ve got;

and, in the giving and receiving, to learn to celebrate the Presence of the One who in mercy and grace has given one more time.

(Adapted)

~Reverend Ruth Patterson

Ruth Patterson, A Farther Shore (Dublin: Veritas Publications, 2000), pp. 116-119.