My Anywhere But Here Blog

Walking Gently with Time.

Time has a way of suddenly becoming louder when life interrupts us.

It can rush in like a ticking clock when we receive news we were never prepared to hear — like the day I was told my cancer had metastasized and I was stage four.

For years, I had not really wanted to be here because of low self-esteem. Yet hearing that news, something shifted in me. I thought, wow… maybe I truly did want to be here after all, no matter the circumstances.

Sometimes it takes the threat of losing something to realize you were holding onto it more tightly than you ever knew.

And yet, in other moments — when there isn’t a sense of urgency — time drifts quietly into the background, allowing us to live freely without watching its hands so closely.

I think about how we measure so much of our lives by time.

• Doctor’s appointments.
• Work schedules.
• Milestones.
• Birthdays.
• Aging.
• Expectations.

And yet some of the most meaningful moments in our lives cannot be measured at all.

• A conversation that lingers.
• A hug that lasts longer than planned.
• A memory that lives on well beyond the moment it occurred.
• A prayer whispered in the quiet when no clock is being watched.

When I reflect on time now, I wonder if we have been taught to race against it rather than walk beside it. We hurry our days, we count the hours, we mark the calendars, and we worry when something — or someone — does not unfold according to schedule.

But what if life was never meant to be lived entirely on a timetable?

What if some journeys are meant to move slowly and gently — one moment at a time — rather than measured by minutes at all?

Perhaps trusting the journey means accepting that time will sometimes feel urgent and at other times feel irrelevant.

Perhaps both can exist together.

The ticking clock… and the quiet unfolding.

Perhaps time is not always something we are meant to chase.

Perhaps it is something we are meant to walk with.

There will be moments when the clock feels loud and unkind, reminding us of appointments, deadlines, and uncertainties we never asked for. And there will be other moments — quiet ones — where time softens its voice and simply allows us to be.

Maybe that is where peace lives.

Not in racing the clock…

but in trusting the journey.

Trusting that what is meant for us will unfold as it should.

Trusting that even when time feels fragile, it is still a gift.

Trusting that our days are not only measured in minutes, but in meaning.

And that the One who created time also holds each of our moments within His hands, guiding us with a love that is never rushed and never late.

So for now, I am choosing not to race time.

I am choosing to walk beside it — gently, faithfully, and with hope — wherever the journey leads.