Tag Archive for: seasons

Tick Tock

๐“๐ข๐ฆ๐ž โ€“ itโ€™s always running out for someone.
My assistants and I regularly talk about time.
We plan with exactness each 6-week transfer, 42 days to be precise.
Often, we specify minutes for planned events.
Growing older, my notion of time is that it goes faster and faster.
In the mission, there is always someone running out of time.
It focuses minds on the present.
How a watch measures time and how we as humans perceive it, are seemingly quite different.
Our ancestors measured time in days, weeks, months, seasons, and years.
Unlike our ancestors, our measurement of time is different.
Today, we measure time in milliseconds, seconds, minutes, and hours.
Blink, and weeks have gone.

Hymn

I love these words penned by Robert Baird.
โ€œTime flies on wings of lightning;
We cannot call it back.
It comes, then passes forward
Along its onward track.
And if we are not mindful,
The chance will fade away,
For life is quick in passing.
โ€™Tis as a single day.โ€
(โ€œImprove the Shining Moments,โ€ Hymns, no. 226)
Time is lightning paced.
Each of us are stewards of our time.
Each day counts.

Today

Commenting on world conditions this week UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, โ€œOur world is becoming unhinged.โ€
In 2019, President Russell M. Nelson said, โ€œI plead with you who have distanced yourselves from the Church and with you who have not yet really sought to know that the Saviourโ€™s Church has been restored. Do the spiritual work to find out for yourselves, and please do it ๐ง๐จ๐ฐ. ๐‘ป๐’Š๐’Ž๐’† ๐’Š๐’” ๐’“๐’–๐’๐’๐’Š๐’๐’ˆ ๐’๐’–๐’•.โ€
Itโ€™s never too early or never too late to learn about Jesus Christ.
Take time today and speak to a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Itโ€™ll be the best time you spend today.
Are you doing everything that you should be doing with your one precious life?

Seasons

โ€œThereโ€™s that clatter againโ€ฆโ€ I thought.
This week, whilst in Apeldoorn, interviewing our missionaries we observed a few facts.
Here in the Netherlands, things had started to fall.
Firstly, temperatures started to fall, thankfully Iโ€™d brought my jacket.
Secondly, the nights started to draw in, the amount of daylight is decreasing.
Thirdly, as the wind blew, literally thousands of acorns were falling from the oak trees around the chapel and clattering against the roof.
I wonโ€™t forget the crunching noise of all those acorns underfoot as we walked back to the car.
Days that were long and sizzling have become short and chilly.
The season has changed.
Autumn has arrived.
In nature, seasons come and go, yet nothing remains the same for very long.
Just as in nature, we experience different seasons in our life.
‘To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under 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.’ Ecclesiastes 1:2-3.
Truly, the seasons represent our time on earth.

๐€๐ฎ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ง by Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves are falling, falling as from far,
As if far gardens in the skies were dying;
They fall, and ever seem to be denying.
And in the night the earth, a heavy ball,
Into a starless solitude must fall.
We all are falling. My own hand no less
Than all things else; behold, it is in all.
Yet there is One who, utter gentleness,
Holds all this falling in His hands to bless.
Your current season of life may be difficult, but if you pause long enough, you may find it’s also a special one with unique blessings and challenges too.
Thomas S. Monson commented on making the most of each season in our lives to “provide time for family, time for work, time for study, time for service, time for recreation, time for self โ€” but above all, time for Christ”
Iโ€™ve learned in life, that no matter how far we may fall, Jesus Christ will always lift you up again.
What are you learning in this season of your life?