A Fragile Peace

I don’t know what is about Daylight Savings Time that can wreck such havoc with our minds and our internal clocks.  I mean, it’s only an hour; sixty minutes that we give up or take away so that we can psych ourselves into believing that the sun is staying higher in the sky just for us.  It’s an illusion that we fall for year after year.

Don’t get me wrong, I like coming home in daylight.  I like being able to go out in my yard after work and crank up my lawn mower if I need to, or get in more errands before the street lights come on.  It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished more in my day.  

But something about it just is not natural. 

For days after the adjustment, we have to tell ourselves that we should be hungry, sleepy, or ready to wake up, all at times that our bodies know we are lying to them.  Regardless what the clock says, we can’t fool mother nature.  There exists in this transition a conflict between what we know and what we must force upon our beings to believe.

I find the same is true with peace.  

It can be fragile sometimes.  It is subjected to setbacks and setting ahead of clocks that conflict with how our hearts and spirits say our times should be.  You know this if you’ve ever had a change of circumstance that was not something you’ve signed up for.  From health issues to job loss to broken relationships, and lots of life events in between, we are forced to go along and show the world that we have accepted them, when our deepest constitutions want not to.  

More than this, there is supposed to be all these hidden benefits to switching things up a bit.  We’re supposed to like having “extra time” in our days, like we are supposed to be glad to have new “opportunities” to start life all over again when something comes to reset us or our seasons.

I’ve had people ask me that grand, rhetorical question to which I only can stare back at them and nod with faux enthusiasm.  “You bet… it’s exciting to have a new beginning!” when my heart only wants a reset to what used to be.  I liked having my family whole, vibrant, and accounted for beneath my roof.  I liked knowing how many plates to set around my table at dinner, and knowing that there would always be a load of laundry to fold in my dryer.

But that’s just not the way things always turn out.  Kids grow up.  People fly the coup.  The laundry pile shrinks and can be gathered in one arm and carried up the stairs. Times are forced upon us and we must adjust. 

We have to get used to the darkness before dawn. 

I have come to understand that life is messy.  It follows a course that causes us to do all that we can to the best of our ability.  We navigate and work hard to keep everything and everyone progressing though it, with just the right amounts of love, faith, and discipline. The problem is, not everyone’s watch is set to the same time zone.  Some people get off before the ride is really over.  Alarms go off and we have to believe that there is a reason for it all.  

What I am saying is that regardless how we manipulate time, there is only One who controls it.  And all the stuff that happens to us in between sunrise and sunset, we must trust Him to lead us through it.  We must believe that, even when it’s hard, He is going to bring purpose and meaning to what is often seemingly senseless.  Our spirits are not always in-sync with what is happening to us, but if we look to Him and not to what others say we should do and be, we will find the sweet spot.  There will be the place where what we are going through intersects with where He is taking us.  

Our faith keeps us moving in the right direction.  By it, we can know that God works all things together for our good.  We can know that He will lead us to the right path, and that His timing is perfect.

For now, like you, I will muddle through.  It won’t be long and I will be able to stop telling my stomach that it really isn’t time to eat.  I will naturally wake up again without the use of my clock.  I won’t laugh under my breath at the confused looks of my two dogs when they wonder why their walks don’t line up with the sun the way they used to. 

It all comes full circle.  We adjust.  We carry on.  

Peace at times can feel so very fragile.  But through Him, we will find it.  

It's just a matter of time.