Jesus is Coming

Tick-Tick

From an early age I was obsessed with watches. My parents gave me my first watch in kindergarten. A small analog watch with a blue pleather band, Snoopy smiling at me from the center, as tiny Woodstock flew around twice each day to point out each hour. I was obsessed with learning how to read it properly. I loved to lay in bed, take it off my wrist and lay it next to my pillow, hearing the soft and almost inaudible tick-tick of the second hand. A few years later, as 1980’s technology rapidly advanced, I found myself the proud owner of a digital watch with a small button on the side that would illuminate the numbers, so that you could tell time in the dark. It was revolutionary.

When I was twelve, my grandmother decided it was time for a “big girl watch.” I never saw my grandmother without a watch, even though she was legally blind and strained to see the small numbers. And so, for my twelfth birthday, I got a Timex watch with a real leather band. My prized possession. I received another Timex from my grandmother for my sixteenth birthday four years later. At eighteen, my mom gave me the watch she had received as a gift from my dad. It was gold with a ruby face, the fanciest watch I ever owned. My husband bought me a watch for my 35^th birthday that I only wear on special occasions. Watches have been given to me throughout my life and I cherish each one.

I constantly wear a timepiece on my wrist, even while I sleep. You will never see me not wearing a watch. I feel naked without a watch. I feel anxious without a watch.

And yet, even though a watch on my wrist makes me feel secure, time itself has always baffled me. I would sit in church as a young girl and hear that God’s time wasn’t the same as ours. For God, our lifetime could be just a blink of his eye. How could that be? Then there was eternity, time that never ended and just continued into infinity. And don’t forget that time never began, what??!! Then there were dog and cat years, which only complicated things further. My beloved companion Sassy was really seven times her human years and that just made no sense to me. Why was time so mysterious and arbitrary?

I spent a lifetime, glancing at the watch on my wrist, running through life in a hurry like Lewis Carrol’s white rabbit in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But I never found myself on any adventure, only perpetually stuck in the rabbit hole of my own mind. Always being told that there would be ample time in eternity, but limited time to prove myself here on earth.

God and religion created that urgency. Urgency to always be moving, to squeeze as much service and sacrifice into as little time as possible. I believed God owned my time. Any time I wasted made me accountable to Him. How could I justify any rest, even though he himself admitted that he needed rest after creation? But, his day of rest, his sabbath? There was no rest on those days, only the clock loudly ticking in the foreground, keeping time for all the hymns, counting every bit of my consecration, and measuring every minute of my righteousness. And time never stood still, so neither could I.

A few weeks ago at work, one of the other nurses stopped me and asked how me and my daughter (also a nurse) could always get so much done, she said: “You two are like the Energizer bunnies and I feel so guilty that I just can’t keep up.” And in that moment I had two realizations about time.

Number One: Being an Energizer bunny isn’t a compliment, it’s a learned response, an exhausting one that my religion taught me was expected. To this day I still struggle claiming rest, because every sermon, every General Conference talk, every Proclamation and blessing told me rest did not belong to me. Men outlined my duties, my roles, my expectations, the things necessary for me to please God. The things that would make me a good wife and mother. The self-sacrifice that was expected of me and required more hours than were present in a single day. So, in some ways that is why I have become such an efficient nurse. It’s why I can take care of others with a smile. It’s why I can juggle multiple tasks at once while only stopping for a snack and a sip of water or caffeine. It’s why I can manage people and tasks like a master juggler. It’s why I have copious amounts of patience and tolerance (within reason). And don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love being a nurse. It was the best midlife education/career shift I’ve made yet.

But being conditioned to fill every minute of every day with work and sacrifice that glories God comes with a cost. It means I struggle not being perfect. It means I struggle snuggling on the couch when I watch a long movie with my spouse. It means I struggle taking midday naps. It means I struggle with letting dishes go undone and laundry go unfolded. I struggle being late, not because of fear of missing out, but because people might judge my lateness. Because I judge my lateness. I see it as failure, as proof I can’t manage myself and my time. And I have unintentionally handed these traits to my daughters. I’ve shared both my healthy and unhealthy relationships with time and urgency with them. Some which have contributed to their successes and some that might lead them to the pain and exhaustion I have often experienced. But at the time it was all I knew. Every muted tick-tick of my watch desperately screamed “more-more!”

Prophets and leaders told me time was running out, the end was near, these were the last days. They blessed me to walk and not be weary while simultaneously preaching that it is “not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength.”¹ And then they pulled out their stop watches and blew the starting whistle. We must be prepared for Jesus to return.

This week I was warned that the time is VERY soon! I saw it on a poster taped to a light pole on the way to work last week. Jesus will be here soon! And he won’t be happy if my checklist isn’t completed. He won’t tolerate untimeliness on my behalf. I should repent now, because there may be no later. If I’m late for his arrival, I’ll be burned with the other sinners who were too late and too undisciplined to step in line. Those poor souls who didn’t have a watch warning them that time was running out. The ones that didn’t set alarms and reminders to keep them focused on all the work that needed to be done. The ones that wasted their time and His. But that led me to my second realization.

Don’t worry the light was red and I was at a complete stop when I snapped this picture.

Number Two: The time we spend here on earth is never wasted. There is ample time for both work and rest. And it’s ok to be the Energizer Bunny when your actions derive from desire, not obligation. But it’s also ok to rest. Even if you feel you don’t deserve it. Especially when you feel you don’t deserve it. And it’s ok to look at your watch and kindly say “no,” I don’t have time for that. Because God doesn’t own your time. Jesus never set time limits. And men don’t own all the stopwatches.

1. Mosiah 4:27