Today would have been my dad’s 60th birthday. He is not here. I cannot celebrate this milestone with him. Nor could I celebrate the last. He died weeks before he turned 59. This last year I experienced grief as never before. I guess, I understood grief on a logical level and empathized with others in their loss. But day to day, knowledge of not having my dad to talk me through random things and give me life advice caused a debilitating grief that I never understood was possible. I prayed because everyday was dark. Everyday relentlessly dragged on. It was all I could do. The only thing that I knew that could bring me hope again was prayer. I was raised in the church, and knew Jesus, but in this grief I was angry that he’d allow my dad to go. I struggled with scripture, often crying as I read through Romans with my Bible study group. God was reassuring me through the message and through my community at church that he still held me close. Although it hurt and the pain was real, His love was greater. Slowly I was able to see that although I lost my earthly father, my Heavenly Father knew me long before my earthly one did. I was consistently brought back to Psalm 139. The peace I felt being comforted by the Word of God allowed me to regain joy and a sense of identity again. I engaged more in my church community and socially, opening up to close friends about my emotions. I sought prayer and later through the comforts of God was able to comfort others. I am now fully engaged in the Masters of Divinity program at Regent University. I’d applied four months before my father’s death and struggled with whether or not I should start when I received my acceptance email. I prayed for months and wondered if I should defer another year, but again through prayer and confirmation of those prayers I continued. I am now a middle school small group co-leader and able to apply many of my lessons to their guidance. I am able to take lessons I’m learning regarding the lifetime transformation of the Holy Spirit to help my students apply daily disciplines to their lives and reassure them when they doubt. One of my favorite things is to prayerfully answer theological questions. I recognize that in my suffering God never left me. It was through the Holy Spirit that I was comforted, loved, and reassured. Through Him, I have been able to do the same for others.

Every day we mark the time. We allot time for when and how long we will eat. For when and how long we sleep and when we have to wake. Our society seems to never have enough time and we always believe the time that we proportion is "enough". We have learned to multitask so that we get the most out of our 24 hours. Tomorrow never comes and yesterday's tasks for today only seem to proliferate. In Mitch Albom's novel "The Time Keeper" there are three characters. One character wants to extend their time, one character to shorten it, and one caused the world's obsession with time. This book made me truly think about how I prioritize my time and how I choose to spend it. The pressure of always being "booked and busy", to pretend to be (or actually be) this "boss" in our society, has a lot of people feeling like they have missed out. I find myself caught up in this sometimes. Rushing through my days, putting time limits on how long I'm going to spend on things that I love. Later finding that I have actually done nothing. I sit down to finally get to that book that I have been wanting to read and I limit myself, "Only 30 minutes." "The Time Keeper" makes you stop and think about why you are using the time you have and what you are using it on. This book was a catalyst in changing my perspective on the life currency of time. We can not get more. We can spend it, but it will never be given back. Even though this book is fiction, Albom has a way of creating worlds so intensely that they feel real and memorable. "The Time Keeper" is a book that could be read in a short amount of time by those that are not yet ready to give up the clock. But, the impact will last forever. I believe if everyone were able to read this book we would have less FOMO, screen time, and broken relationships. It is a book that could truly change our world.