time and times

I have been in an Ecclesiastes frame of mind lately. I love the wisdom books, though Proverbs makes me feel a little inadequate, but the Psalms and the other poetic books really feel like home to me. I do love Paul's logic and Peter's unvarnished humanity and compassion, but lately I have been wallowing in the poetry of the Old Testament.

Thanks to the Byrds, most people of my generation are familiar with Ecclesiastes 3:


To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end

Many of our times are decided for us - we have no control over the seasons, the weather, the growth of our children, the aging of our parents and ourselves. The times to weep and to mourn generally come upon us unbidden, and few of us have any say about the timing of wars. But we do choose many of the other times - the choice is often ours whether to embrace or to refrain from embracing, to search or to give up, to be silent or to speak, the tear or to mend. And this, of course, is where the wisdom comes in.

As parents we have many, many choices to make, not only for ourselves but for our children. And many of them involve timing. Beginning when they are babies we decide when to feed them and when to let them fuss a bit; later we choose when to let them attempt the stairs on their own and when to shield them from that dangerous place. We decide when to let them play outdoors alone and when to stay close enough to see everything that's going on. The Psalmist wrote of God, "My times are in your hands," and to a large extent, our children's times are in our hands.

We have much freedom as parents, within the constraints of our individual circumstances and we all choose differently. When our children were young we decided the time was not ripe for them to go to school, even though their peers were heading off to preschool and kindergarten. We kept putting off the time for school, until we finally decided to teach them at home through high school.

Some of our friends thought our sense of timing was poor. I remember one friend advising us that children needed to learn to deal with the real world, when our daughters were in first or second grade. We continued to attract the same advice from kind, well-meaning friends at every stage - middle school, junior high, and, of course, high school. "You need to let go of them"; "they need to be able to make their own mistakes"; "you can't shelter them forever" chanted the Greek chorus in our lives. So at each step we would evaluate, and re-evaluate and ask ourselves, "Is it time?"

Now that our eldest two are 17 and 18 we sense that the time has come. We are ready (a qualified term) to "let go of them," to "let them make their own mistakes," to send them out from the shelter of our home. And we are observing a curious phenomenon. Our children are much more ready to take on a challenge and spread their wings than most of their peers. While most of their friends are choosing the relatively safe college immediately after high-school route, our two are heading off to India and New Zealand - not to get away from home, but to pursue dreams and visions that have been nurtured in the safety of our home. College is definitely in their future plans, but they want to know themselves, their gifts and the world better first. They are not afraid to step outside the box - to fly outside the box!

If we made any wise choices, we owe them all to the grace of God, not our own wisdom. But I do not regret at all the years of preparation and shelter we gave our children. They have grown deep roots and strong stems which will allow them to flower brilliantly in the proper season.

Sola Deo Gloria.