Tag Archives: timeline

On the Dotted Line

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Recently I read that people have, on average, about 4000 weeks to live. I’m hoping for a few more than that, as 4000 weeks only gets me to about 77 years. I’m aiming for 4,680 weeks. You can do the math.

The idea intrigued me. What would 4000 weeks look like? I had to know, so I made a chart with each dot representing one week. Here’s what my life looks like in dots—each color marks a decade.

See those dark pink dots? Those are my 20s. Five hundred and twenty blue dots cover my 30s. My 40s are shown by yellow dots and purple dots represent my 50s. I’m well into my orange-dot-decade.

See that little heart around that green dot? That’s when PB and I got married. We’ve shared a lot of dots since then, and I’m so grateful.

Every Sunday I draw another tiny circle in another tiny square, step back, and take a long look at my life. I say, “Thank You Lord, for Your faithfulness to me over weeks, years, and decades.”

Then I look at the empty spaces yet to be filled in and say, “Lord, help me to be faithful to You until my dots run out.”

It occurred to me this morning that
truly, truly,
my dots will go on forever and ever.

“I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live,
even though he dies;
and whoever lives
and believes in me
wil never die.”
John 11:25

Timeline

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I’m a sucker for timelines.

Back in our homeschooling days, I made a timeline that wrapped around our dining room and continued up and down the hallway. There were yards and yards of ancient history, decades condensed into mere inches, all the way to the year 2000. That’s where the line of time stopped, as we were out of wall space.

(Not much happened in the 1200s.)

Contributions to our homemade timeline were made every year: Katie’s favorite books and authors, Sam’s sports facts, Anna’s musicians and Jacob’s inventors. We began to see the sweep of time come to life before our eyes. Events happened around the world that we never would have connected before.

  • Mozart was composing sonatas at the same time Daniel Boone was blazing the Wilderness Road.
  • Abner Doubleday came up with a game called baseball as Dickens was writing “A Christmas Carol”.
  • Chocolate chip cookies were accidentally invented while Hitler was marching into Austria.

When we moved away, the timeline came along and encircled our new basement. Eventually, the kids entered public school and the timeline came down. It was the year 2000. I had come to the end of my time as a homeschool teacher. Twelve years of our family’s educational history was rolled up and placed in a box, along with a few tears.

I’m thinking about this as a school year begins. Nothing thrills my heart more than a fresh start and the wide open possibility of learning new things. I’m diving into Joshua this fall, so of course, I made a timeline.

As Moses ran away to the desert after killing an Egyptian,
Joshua was born to Israelite slaves.
Forty years later, Moses returned to lead those slaves out of Egypt,
and Joshua became his right hand man.
You just never know what might happen down the line.
But something is always happening.
Even when we can’t see it,
He’s working.

“My times are in Your hand.”
Psalm 31:15