Don't Blink

Don’t blink.

As a new mom I am eager to hear the advice of sage, trusted women who have gone this way before me.  So when the sweet eighty year old grandma looked at me, eyes welled up with tears, I leaned in. 

“Being a mom is unlike anything you’ll ever experience,” she said. “But it goes by far too fast.  Whatever you do, don’t blink.”

I smiled and awkwardly laughed saying something like, “It does go fast!”.  But on the inside, an involuntary response was set off.  My heart began to race, my hands trembling and my mind reeling. 

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this advice.  In fact, it seems to be what every one is telling me these days. 

“It’ll be gone before you know it!”, “Don’t blink!” and “Enjoy every second!” 

Why does that “advice” feel more like a sucker punch than wise counsel?

My sweet little baby who arrived late November after so many prayers and tears is nearing his first birthday.  Every day I look at him and think, how did we get here?  Where did my newborn baby go?  Then I think about the words of so many women, telling me not to blink. And I’m trying- believe me, I am trying! 

But it’s not working. 

Every day, for the last 9 months and 26 days I’ve been walking around with this lump in my throat and knot in my stomach because I can’t not blink. 

Time ticks by at the same rate it always has and always will regardless of how fiercely I try to fight it.  I strive daily to be present—to not blink. Despite my efforts, my finite body requires me to blink.  It’s as automatic and part of my humanity as the passage of time.   

We all live in bodies bound by needs and a world bound by time. 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV

He has set eternity in the human heart.

In this lifetime we will always feel the pain of the passage of time, things slipping away and the longing for more.  We were meant for more. Although we live in a broken world and our lives are fleeting, it was never intended to be this way.  God created us in His perfect image and set eternity (def: infinite, unending time) in our hearts.  

Those pain points are God’s gentle reminders to look up.  Better things are yet to come, my child. 

Better than this most perfect newborn baby?  Somehow, in ways I cannot fathom, but my aching heart knows must be true, yes.   

God is so good- and the passage of time and seasons of life, though often painful, are really God’s goodness to us.

Just before this verse in Ecclesiastes, Solomon gives us some context. 

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…” Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 NIV 

There is something unbelievably special about a newborn.  It truly feels like you are embracing the closest thing to heaven when you are skin to skin with your newborn baby.  Those are moments I will forever cherish.  And yet if my baby were to have stayed that tiny little ball of perfection, I never would have experienced that same, slightly matured face, covered in remnants of our spaghetti dinner and the most adorable four-tooth grin.

I am done trying not to blink—it is an exercise in futility.  When I am focusing on not blinking, but the ache still comes, I’m led to believe that I did it wrong—that I’ve somehow missed out and didn’t savor it enough.  This drives me to hold on tighter, squeezing the life and joy out of the moment.  It never has and never will give me a single minute back.

Strive and fight it, or don’t—the ache will still come.  It is God’s reminder that we will never fully be satisfied in this world and that for believers, the best is yet to come.

If you, like me dread the passage of time, and feel some sort of shame for blinking, take heart. 

With God as our help and eternity in our hearts, we can fully enjoy the sweet moments of today.  We can expect and embrace the ache while also looking forward with anticipation to what tomorrow will bring.

We no longer have to curb our joy today by bracing ourselves and worrying about what we are going to miss tomorrow.

Go ahead and blink—you can’t stop it from happening anyway.  It’s going to be okay.  God is present on both sides of the blink.

(Now, will someone please remind me of this on my son’s first birthday? Thanks in advance!)