Time Travel

Time travel has long been debated and will grace the screen of many a Sci-Fi movie. Since God is capable of all things, I believe He can do anything He wants to do. Therefore, God can arrange time travel when and where and with whom He pleases.

Walk with me now as we step back in time……..

This writing is not to debate the issue but I believed there is a form of time travel we are all capable of and probably should experience. This time traveling involves going back to visit relatives in the place from whence you came. I recently returned to area of my birth and extended family to attend a funeral. What a bag of mixed emotions this brings! This month marks the sixteenth anniversary of when we were all together to bury my mother. We cousins, my first cousins and I, concluded long ago this seems to be the only time the extended-extended family gets together; a sad but true observation.

As I stepped onto the yard of my aunt’s house I was hit with the parallel between the familiarity of the aging house and those whose lives revolved around it. I could hear echoes of our childhood games and laughter as clearly as that of my cousins’ grandchildren. Flashes of memories flooded in from all sides, not just of this house but of our grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins everywhere. Nothing was changed but the names of the players.

You look into faces you used to know, they are familiar enough but the paintbrush of time and the chisel of experience has painted and carved a lifetime upon each one. The eyes looking into yours dart away quickly because they no longer see the person they have held you in their mind to be; you are familiar yet entirely different just as they to you. A sense of camaraderie lingers though we are but strangers who have peeked into snippets of each others lives through tales on the family grapevine. There are the few you have maintained connections with enough to know on a more personal level but those numbers seem to dwindle as the years tick off. You share a few laughs at stories of a common youth and talk about the number of grandchildren with which each has be blessed. Only those in the immediate family of the deceased have their children, now grown, and grandchildren around but they are not familiar enough to you to hit your emotional radar. Beyond the catch up tidbits, conversation is surface level and you find your mind wandering to home and hearth; wishing you were there. You want to leave but the roots of family hold you there a little longer; waiting for something…anything…to make being there more important than the desire to get back to your real life. You wait, you hope and yet it does not come; you are torn in a balancing act between the rare and precious time with the family of your roots and the need to be in your present. Like I said…a mixed bag of emotions.

I am so thankful for the time spent with the family of my past. I’ve never been one that handles goodbyes well. Knowing you are seeing some of these people, your family, for the last time makes that final hug and ‘I love you’ a bittersweet moment. You both promise to call and know neither will in spite of good intentions. They will be caught up in their own world as quickly as you in yours. I drove away fighting back tears that finally spilled over and ran down my face in spite of my resolve. I even wondered what exactly the tears were for. Were they tears of sadness, tears of lost loved ones? Were they tears of regret for not staying closer to people that once played a large role in your life? Were they tears for a lost youth? I decided it did not matter. God can use our tears to cleanse us of indifference and make our hearts more tender; more aware of the pain and suffering around us; more compassionate….more like the heart of Jesus.

When I returned home I knew God used my journey to the past as a teaching tool to make me more useable for His purposes. Sitting with my Honey that evening in our humble abode with our devoted canines snuggled all around, I felt comfortably loved and wanted; I was fulfilled. Nothing says “I Love You” like being in your own Jesus-filled home after a little time travel.