Taking His Sweet Time

Taking His Sweet Time

My friend Steve is taking his sweet time. He’s seizing small moments and making them count, because the time he has may well be short, and shortened time tastes strangely sweeter. He’s savoring company, the sound of rain, kind words and kisses, books and memories, slow conversation, and meals he barely touches but deliberately, determinedly enjoys.

Yesterday we spent a morning in each other’s company—me in jeans and no makeup, him in a plaid flannel bathrobe, and later, in what he calls his American Gothic uniform: baggy, suspendered denim and a faded T-shirt, with his familiar rimless spectacles perched on his nose. “I need a pitchfork,” he said with a smile. Then I pulled up an image of Grant Wood’s iconic painting on my phone, and we both laughed.

Never one for mindless chatter, he quickly presses into conversation that counts for something. Even when his words are quiet and labored, he’s not about to waste a single one. He has a practiced writer’s eye and speaks in images and metaphors that are hard and beautiful at once. His energy is focused on managing the simplest tasks, but his mercy is focused outward. During our visit, he asked about my family, my health, my heart, and then gifted me with words of blessing so painfully sweet and perfectly timed they made me weep. When he got up from his chair and padded into another room, I asked if he was okay, and he said, “I’m fine,” padding back with a fat box of tissues for the tears rolling off my own cheeks and chin.

Why do we wait until time is almost gone to take our time with those we love? Why do we save the sweetest words until we have nothing left to lose by saying them? Why do we withhold what we could so easily give away, waiting for someone else to be the first to offer?

Steve is taking his sweet time. And teaching those he loves to take theirs, too.

We’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace.

2 Corinthians 4:16, MSG