dialogue with my daughter

That tiny little bundle of a babe turns forty years old this week.  As most of you know she also recently published a book: “All the Time: Daily Devotions Finding Faith in the Everyday Moments.”  In honor of her momentous day, I present this imagined dialogue with my daughter from her chapter “God Takes Seven Days”:

Meredith: When I was young, I would cry at night at the thought of heaven, living with no end…

Me:  I already knew that about you.  Once I bought a picture book called “Someday Heaven” to get you comfortable with the idea, but you would never let me read it to you!

Meredith:  Eternity scares me because there is no framework.  But there is no story without the passing of time. No suspense, no relief…we need a before and an after.  We need a story.  

Me:  Yeah.  God designed Time for US.  He tells his story in Time.  But He doesn’t really need it himself, does he?   

Meredith:  What do you think about God not needing time?  Is that overwhelming or comforting? 

Me:  The whole notion that God would create limitations and then move into those limitations to tell His story to us, FOR us, is deeply touching.  What lengths will He NOT go to in order to reach His beloved creation?  He made Time to contextualize His Timelessness.                                          

Meredith:  Do you think God took seven days to create the earth and its inhabitants?  Why do you think the time frame of seven days was chosen in the creation narrative?

Me:  Seven days is a perfect number—the number of completion.  It says, “Enough.  No more required.”  In seven metaphorical days he gave us everything we need to flourish: He gave us days for work and play and nights for rest; He gave us grass and trees, every budding flower and food to consume; He produced animals and birds and insects galore. And water!  Wide expanses of clean water that fills us each up to sixty percent capacity!  (Why am I not gulping it down like air all day long?)  When on the “seventh day” He rested, He underlined, italicized and CAPITALIZED our need for HIM.  God gave us everything and in the seven-day blink-of-His-eye.

If a week was God’s idea, then why don’t I love it, caress it?  Why do I scoff or complain about it? Why do I neglect its rhythm?  All of Timeless Time is God’s. 

Meredith:  So, how do you feel about eternity? 

Me:  Eternity in its formlessness is intimidating; I’ll grant you that.   And I prefer limitations...I always head to the sale rack in the back of the store before considering the overwhelming options that I pass along the way. But I have all of life to get used to the idea of infinitude.  I bind myself to seven-day spreads, and then shed them as I age, until I reach the point where time is so much less important.  Maybe one day I won’t even remember it; maybe the loss of it all will actually be relief-- sweet in its embrace as it wraps me in a comforter of Timelessness.

Meredith:  Then eternity doesn’t scare you?

Me:  The older I get, the more people I know in heaven.  I’m looking forward to seeing them.  And as you said, “We need a story.”   God is my story…beginning, middle and end.                  

Perhaps you have something to add to the conversation.  Or maybe you just want to join me in wishing my daughter the happiest of birthdays. 

Love, Liz

Photo of Meredith’s first day home from the hospital, 1981.

Thank you, Patrick Schmidt, for the “Welcome Home” sign.

And thank you to all of YOU who purchased the book and have helped to promote it with five-star reviews on Amazon, and by telling your family and friends!  You’re the best!