It’s Time

How many times have I heard these words in 80 years…..”It is time!” A verbal nudge to propel activity. I remember Dad’s rousing cry in the morning, “Up and at-tem!”

The importance of time came to me when I was about 7 years old. We had one telephone and a live operator would say, “Number, please.” Dad told me that I could ask the operator for the correct time. He coached me as to the proper way to ask. My little brothers watched me as I made the important call and asked for the correct time. Dad asked what the time was when I hung up. My answer became a family story that my brothers loved to tease me about, “She said that it is 6:66.” To this day I still believe that is what I heard.



When Mom got a new kitchen stove with a ‘dinger’ (timer), she decided that in order to make short work of the chores, she would set the ‘dinger’ and then we would be compelled to ‘beat the dinger’ with our dusting, dish washing, or whatever chore when we dwaddled.

I often wondered where and how did time come to be? So many things operate on time (or late) with schedules for every thing from schools to factories, from airplanes to trains, from offices to shopping malls. If there were no schedules, no one would be late. It is interesting to see how man created a sun dial, used the traveling shadow and finally the digital time piece to chronicle the passing of time.

Time came to be in the very beginning of creation of our world. Our world began with ‘In the beginning God’. The God who can see the span of time of the universe. The God who is in control of each of our lives over a span of generations. The God who is with each of us at conception and knew us and gave us His purpose for our lives before we drew our first breath. The God who gives us hope through Jesus Christ. He created us as eternal beings to live with Him for an eternity – if we choose to do so.

God created the heavens and earth, the seasons, the sun and the moon, He created time and times. Solomon knew this when he said, There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

From the time I remember hearing, “It is time…..”

As a child, I heard – It’s time to….. wake up, get dressed, set the table, wash the car, clean your room, go to school, wash the dishes, get ready for bed, to practice piano, wash your hands, get a hair cut, go to church, feed the chickens, gather the eggs, milk the cow.

Then it’s time to…..find a job, go to work, save money, go to college, get married, make a home. The farmer, fruit grower and gardener lives by seasons and say, it is time to…..plow the field, to plant the seed, to water and weed, to harvest the crops, to sell the crops.

When I think of our family history…flung across many lands, I know that God has led us to where we are for His purposes in His Time. Traveling across many countries in search peace and freedom, uprooting the family to begin again in the face of many challenges. Did the family heads say, “It is time….” It is time to search for a home where we can raise our families and worship God freely despite a new language, a new government, a new culture in a different location. Did they hear God’s voice in their hearts? “It is time….”

I can imagine my Grandpa Jacob Siemens, as he dropped his suitcase at the railroad station, and didn’t realize it. He knew his time on earth was short on this earth as paralysis set in.

I remember Grandmother Suderman who entered a nursing home say, “I just want to be decent about it.” And my Grandfather Suderman who told me that he wanted to be with the Lord, beside the still waters – a week later he was there. Dad had a smile on his face as he crossed the threshold of heaven. I remember Mother saying, “I wondered what God will choose as my Exit Lane from this life.”

Exit/Entrance When travel slows with age and pain an exit lane shall take me home, through evening gloam where gathered saints and angels sing and gold harps ring in Paradise beyond blue skies Though things of earth may disappear I shall not fear that final breath to walk through death.

Time is not my enemy, it is my friend bringing the realization of my hope in Jesus. Now I feel the passing of time and know that for me it is soon time…..to lose my independence, to lose my health, to say goodbye to my loved ones, and I know that this time to die is also a time to live with my Lord where there is no time. Then I will return to the incredible feeling when there is no hurry, no ‘dinger’, just a peace that passeth understanding, a joy more great than I experienced as a child in the lazy summer time in the sandpile under the backyard elm tree.



“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.“ II Peter 3:8. Eternity is where love is realized and expressed, where I will continually praise my Lord. This is where my hope is.

Zephaniah 3:17 – The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”



One quote I found is this: “Don’t count every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count!“

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 – Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.

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