Have you ever seen the Lucille Ball episode where she and Vivian are working at the chocolate factory and they are supposed to wrap the chocolates as they go by on an assembly line?  Starts out fine and then the line goes faster and faster and pretty soon they cannot catch up.  What was at the beginning of the assembly line is gone and past them before they even have time to react.
I was thinking about time the other night.  Past, present, future.  To us it seems so cut and dried, until you really start to think about it.  Maybe it's just me, I do tend to overthink things.  It kind of felt like my head was going to explode as I thought about it.  What was in the future is already in the past.  It slips by so quickly we truly cannot fathom the speed. 
We are out with friends or family and taking lovely pictures of the present to save and look at for the memories later.  But by the time we even press the button that picture of the present is already past.
It seems only yesterday I was in elementary school.  Fast forward just moments it seemed and I am married with a baby on the way.  Now my babies have babies of their own and time is gone. 
James 4:13-15 says this, "And now I have a word for you who brashly announce, “Today—at the latest, tomorrow—we’re off to such and such a city for the year. We’re going to start a business and make a lot of money.” You don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. You’re nothing but a wisp of fog, catching a brief bit of sun before disappearing. Instead, make it a habit to say, “If the Master wills it and we’re still alive, we’ll do this or that.”
This scripture has more to do with doing the will of the Father rather than making our own plans, but I see how time also factors into it.  We wake up with thoughts and plans as to how the day should go and often the day is gone before we even accomplish just a bit of our list. 
I'm 53, soon to be 54.  I remember as a kid thinking the year 2000 sounded like something out of science fiction.  How did I get here already?  The phrase time flies doesn't even begin to cover it. 
The thing that I have to remember is that all time is in God's hands.  He sees the beginning from the end and all time in between.  That is almost unfathomable.  Some have explained it like a parade.  Here I am at, say the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade.  I am sitting in my spot watching the parade go past.  There is the Spiderman balloon going past, now a marching band, and suddenly it's Santa Claus and the parade is over.  The other perspective is being in a helicopter overhead and seeing the beginning of the parade and the end.  I don't think it even begins to cover all that God sees and does. How can we explain the One who is inexplicable?  I just have to trust that the great God who created me sees all in my life and will get me through it. 
This is me, Gail                                                                     .                                                                      
I am this little dot in the expanse of time.  Put here specifically by God, right here, right now.  I am held in this thing called time, hopefully living out my days according to His will, but one day I will be outside of that sometimes cruel taskmaster called Time and I will reside with God in eternity.  It is no wonder that in the Bible we are called to do as it says in Ephesians 5:15-16a, "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time."  That word for redeeming is exagorazo, the same word used for when Jesus redeemed us.  He redeemed us from the slavery of sin.  We are to be wise with our lives, to redeem it from that taskmaster of time and live a life that begins and ends each day with God at the forefront.  That is the only way we can expect to fulfill His will and live each day to its fullest potential.  If we are living in each moment, living as if it may be our last moment, living it to accomplish His will, then we are making good use of our time.
I waited 52 years to begin writing the way that I knew I was called to.  I wasted years living in fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of judgement.  I cannot make up those years.  The time lost can never be gotten back, but I can look to the Lord each day, each hour, each second to lead me into His will.  To make the most of this time I have left here on this earth.  To wrap up each moment like one of those pieces of chocolate Lucy couldn't wrap up.  To wrap it up, present it to the Father and see what He does with it.
The funny thing about that video clip of Lucy is how she and Vivian try to hoard that chocolate as it goes by so fast. They cannot make the proper use of it, so they stash it wherever they can.  They do all they can to hide it. They try to stuff it in their mouths, hide it in their dresses, tuck it away under their hats.  They think that the supervisor will not see what they have done. 
The thing is, God does see.  He does know.  He does love.  He does forgive.
We will blow it from time to time.  It is inevitable.  But He will get us back on track as we seek Him.  He picks us back up, dusts us off and puts us back on the path that He has made for us. 
Even when we look as silly and as guilty as Lucy does, with our mouths stuffed with chocolate, our fingers messy with all that we have done wrong.  Even as we hang our heads in shame for our blunders. 
He knows right where we belong.  He knows how to put to rights all we have done in error.  He lovingly and sometimes with the discipline we need puts all in order.
Just in time.

If you want a little laugh, here is a link to the the video of Lucy and the chocolate factory...just paste and go

https://youtu.be/8NPzLBSBzPI

I seem to get a lot of ideas for my posts from movies.  I'm not sure why that is, it's just the way my mind works.  I watch a movie and then I filter it through my experiences with God and the insight of the Holy Spirit and I see a whole new way of looking at it.
I just watched the Runaway Bride again.  It is one of my favorite movies and every time I watch it I laugh all over again.  It is about this woman who has had three weddings terminated at the alter.  You see scenes of her walking down the altar towards her fiance and then, like a klaxon sending a warning signal in her head you see her veer off and run out the door.  She is on her fourth wedding attempt when a writer hears about this crazy man-eating woman who leaves wrecked men in her wake.
It comes to light that the reason she can't seem to make it through the ceremony is that she never figured out who she was.  She always fashioned herself after whatever man she was with.  She adopted his musical tastes, she ate the kind of food he did.  She was seemingly never able to be herself with anyone.
I can relate to that.  I remember going through many periods of so-called self discovery and trying to fit in with the people in my life.  Of experimenting with life styles and ideas of who I could be that would make people like me.
I spent years in school being invisible and just hoping that someone would like me.  So I did what I thought would make that happen.  I started drinking and going to parties.  I used drugs and carelessly gave myself away to men who could have cared less.  I tried to fit a mold that wasn't who I was supposed to be.  I had no concept of who I was or what I was here on earth for.
So many years wasted and so many opportunities abused.  I was like that runaway bride, trying to fit in wherever I could just so someone could tell who I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to do.
It wasn't until I met Jim and he shared his faith with me that I realized there was something more.  I was something more.
I was born for a reason and alive for a purpose.  I was formed by a God who knew exactly what He was doing and shaped me with love.
The bible says in Jeremiah 1:5, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you".  And in Psalms 139:13, "For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother's womb".  Here is a picture of an artisan, finely molding a beautiful work of art.  Forming and shaping us to exact specifications.  Not some cheaply mass produced blob of nothing but a fine piece of craftsmanship. 
Psalms 139:14 goes on to say, "I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well."  The words that strike me in this verse are not so much that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, but that it is acknowledged that His works are great; that includes me!  He doesn't make mistakes.  I was not a blunder in the grand scheme of things.  Making me was not a misstep or a miscalculation.  I am beautiful to Him, inside and out.  I was wrought for His good pleasure.  I was fashioned for a grand purpose.  I was intended for something wonderful.
Yes, I took detours to get to this place.  I was that bride who made it to the altar so many times but never spoke her vows.  I was that incomplete person.  I was that woman who was abused and mistreated and used up and thrown away. 
I was all that and more...or should I say less.  I was less than I was meant to be.  I was not complete.  Not until I met the One who called me to be his bride.  I met the Groom who already loved me with an everlasting love.  The One who cherished me in spite of what I thought of myself.  The One who chose me to be His own.  When I looked at Him I realized I was never going to be the same again.  And I had a decision to make.  Was I going to bolt at the altar again or was I going to step into the greatest relationship I could ever have?   Was I going to finally realize who I was and what I truly needed?
There is a line in the movie where Richard Gere speaks the proposal that he would say to someone he truly loved.  She, then at the end of the movie repeats it back to him.  It says, "Look, I guarantee there'll be tough times. I guarantee that at some point, one or both of us is gonna want to get out of this thing. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life, because I know, in my heart, you're the only one for me".
Yes in this adventure I call my walk with Jesus there have been tough times.  And shamefully there have been times when I turned my back on Him.  But His love never let me get too far.  He was waiting with open arms to welcome me back.  He never wanted to 'get out of this thing'.  His love never fails, it never falters.  And though I have regrets in my past, the one decision that I do not regret is saying yes to Him.
Because I know in my heart, He is the only One for me.