Our Stories
The Redeemer of Years
By Abigail Welborn | posted 08/27/2009
"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..." Joel 2:25 (NIV)
In one of my creative writing classes in college, one assignment was to write a sketch about our deepest fear. That was probably the easiest page I’ve ever whipped off, but it turned out to be a far more emotional experience than I had anticipated. In my sketch, a woman wakes up on the last day of her life and realizes that she didn’t accomplish the biggest things she’d intended to do. It was one of the few times I’ve ever cried while writing.
I think I was only in Kindergarten when I decided I wanted to be an author. Yet here I am, five years after my last creative writing class, still working on chapter 9 of my first novel. It’s just so hard to keep the huge, long-term goal of Write A Book in view when the more immediate goals of Find Food To Eat For Dinner and Make Sure I Have Clean Clothes To Wear Tomorrow are demanding my attention. Then, when I’m again surprised by Friday, I look back and feel like I got so little done, I must have wasted a lot of time.
In a recent sermon, Doug said something in passing that really stuck with me (paraphrased out of my memory): "God promises only that our lives won’t be wasted, not that they’ll be comfortable or even safe." It brought to mind a related verse that turned out to be Joel 2:25 (above). God’s people have repented of their sin after great calamity, and not only does he take them back, but he actually makes up for the time that was lost.
I’m sure relieved to hear that, but I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. On a few occasions God has given people extra time. For example, in Joshua 10:1-15, Joshua asks for more time to defeat the Amorites, and God makes the sun stand still. Again in 2 Kings 20:1-11, King Hezekiah comes down with a fatal illness and asks God to heal him. God gives him 15 extra years and moves a shadow backwards as a sign. Depending on your interpretation of those events, however, I can’t think of a time when he’s actually rolled back the clock.
Still, when I look back on the five years in which I haven’t finished my novel, I see many great blessings. On some occasions I chose to help a friend in need rather than focus on my own goal. I met and married my husband, even though I spent a lot of time with him that technically could have been spent writing. Were those hours, which add up to days and even weeks, truly wasted? Of course not. While I believe that God has called me to be a writer, I know that he’s also called me to be a friend and a wife, a daughter and a sister. When I act in accordance with his will, my life will be one that truly matters in eternal ways.
But there’s more! God does long to bless us, always with spiritual blessings and many times with temporal blessings, too. He didn’t look down on Hezekiah for wishing to live longer; instead, he rewarded him with more years. I know that I’ll finish my book eventually, and I’ll happily accept whatever blessing God decides to give me through it. I might not get to be comfortable, always working on what I want to do, but since I know that my life will count for eternity and that God will in some way bless my earthly endeavors as well, my years are doubly useful!
Abigail can be reached via email here.
