Space and Time
By Cara Croft
I have been sitting here for a long time trying to figure out what I want my first words to be for this blog. What can I say that would leave you interested to read more? Should I begin with spiritual thoughts or begin by letting you know who I am? Or should I not begin at all and let Kellye take all the risks (and do all the work) while I sit back and encourage her to keep it up? I sit and wait for the right words, which, right now seem to be traveling from the other side of the world, slowly making their way to my brain.
Part of my struggle to find the right words is because in order to do that I need two things: Space and time. Two things I am extremely limited in: time and space. I am married to a man who is a pastor, this automatically means I have less space and time. We have 4 children. Well, actually, as of this weekend, 2 adult children (adultren??- what do you call children who are living at home but are totally grown humans), 1 teenager and 1 who is a teenager in every way except age. Yet all 4 of these adult-ish children (again, adultren) are still living in my home, thus a lack of space and time. I am also a student. I am slowly working on my master’s degree in counseling, which I love, but it is part of what sucks up my time and space. I am a friend and a daughter, and about 100 other different roles that you could pin on my coat lapel. All of these have a common thread, they compete with my need for time and space.
Are you with me? Do you feel the pull too? Do you feel it when you are so tired that all you want to do is curl up in bed and sleep for 10 days but your husband/friend/child want you to do something fun with them? Do you feel it when the weekend for your family is interrupted by an unexpected church crisis? Do you feel it when all you want is one quiet morning but the earlier you wake up the earlier your children wake up, or the earlier the phone rings with a call from your mother? (there is a sixth sense in both mothers and children that sense we are awake and seek our immediate attention- even when they are not in our house or physically in our presence. How do they know??? How can we stop it???) Or how about when you are trying desperately to write a blog post only to be interrupted by a daughter wanting to do a puzzle together because your attention has been focused everywhere but her this weekend? Or how about when…….I am sure by now you get my point.
None of these things are bad. That is not what I am saying here. It is not bad my children want my attention, and it is not bad to care for church members in crisis. It is not bad friends want to spend time with us. It is not bad my mom is calling me, again, to make sure I remember to do something that is certainly not as important to me as it is to her at 7:00 in the morning. But it is also not bad to desire time and space for myself. After all, even Jesus took time and space. He withdrew in the mountain for times of prayer (Luke 5:16). Actually it says “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed”. It is not bad to feel the tension and the pull in my soul to slow down, to breathe, to get enough space to think and to pray.
Really, what all of this is highlighting, more than anything else, is one simple fact: I am human. It is that simple. I was made to need time and space because I was made within a constraint of time and space. I am human, I am not God. Only God is outside the realm of time and space. Yet that is not how he created humanity. He created us to be limited in time and resources. He created us with a need for rest and space to regain our resources. He created us with bodies and minds that break down and need to rest, with a soul that requires withdrawing to the lonely places to pray. And so, the place I begin with this blog is from this place of weariness, neediness, brokenness. I am human, you are human, and we are on this journey together. And so my first words to you, my fellow human, is we all need space and we all need to take the time to find that space. So here is to taking some time and finding some space, and the beginnings of a journey together.