and have been back in our native California for 109 days. As I read those numbers, it makes my head spin. I can hardly comprehend my life before Grenoble, how long we lived in France, and that we have already been back in California for so long.
Time
and numbers are such fickle things. Can life be quantified? Is it accurate to
say we have been back in California for 10% of the time we were gone? Often,
trying to quantify life glosses over the quality of time. Life is more than a
string of moments: seconds and minutes and days slipping by. Hours and days each have a set duration, but they do not
all have the same value. How we spend, waste, or invest our time shapes us.
Our
(almost) three years in Grenoble were (about) 10% of my life, but they were a
critical 10%. God used our time in France, away from
family and our native culture, as a means of transforming me. I learned,
experienced, and changed more during this season than many others. When I look
back on my life, our time in Grenoble will always be a significant period the
same way going to university or getting married were in forming who I am. The
rest of my life has been irreversibly changed, for the better, because of our
time and our friends in Grenoble.
How
much we engage with our lives and our time, and how much we allow the Lord, who
is always at work sculpting us to be more whole and holy, adds gravity and
grandeur to our moments.
How are you investing your time? Are you spending it in meaningful
ways? What is the Lord wanting to do in and through you? What has the Lord
taught or transformed in your life during the last 100 days? What is the Lord
wanting to do with the next 100?
