Is it just me, or did January drag on forever?

Was the first day of the new year really just one month ago?  I turned the page on my calendar yesterday to February and breathed a sigh of relief.  Then, of course, being the thinker that I am, I tried to figure out why.  Why did that first month of the year seem so long, when really, it has the same number of days that many other months do?

It was busy, for sure.  I came home after the holidays, had a car crisis (a stuck throttle body, which meant my car would go no faster than 18mph), started a new semester at work, wrote an article pitch for a magazine that was accepted and then had to fast-track the writing to meet the deadline for publication, had a friend visit from out of town, dealt with a new family of elephants (or so it sounds) that moved into the apartment above mine, worked through some other frustration where I tried to stand up for myself and it didn’t go so well, a friend asked me my thoughts on a subject we disagree on theologically and my answer turned out to be 5 pages long – typed, and to finish up the month, I found out I have a fractured tooth that has to come out…which will cost me something in the amount of a number with more than two zeroes after it.

No wonder I’m exhausted.  And relieved to have January, 2016 tucked safely behind the calendar picture for February, which would be a nice short little month except for the fact that this is the year we add an extra day.  Sigh.

But maybe days and months and years are God’s way of giving us compartmentalized sections of time where we can frame periods of His goodness and His faithfulness, in spite of the wackiness, the drama, the struggles, the financial challenges.  January’s thirty one days seemed soooo looooong.  But every one of those loooong  31 days had a part in His plan for me.

God got me to the car repair place safely, even though I could only drive 18 miles per hour all the way there on one of the busiest streets in the area. This may make me think twice before rolling my eyes at people driving with their flashers on. The magazine article opportunity was an amazing blessing, an answer to my prayers for direction with my writing. The visit from a friend was a chance to talk about life and love and God. I learned that sometimes, even as a Christian, it’s okay to stand up for yourself and fight for what you think is right, though things may not turn out the way you want them to. The response I gave to my friend about our theological differences gave me the opportunity to dig deep into scripture, testing what I said I believed and reminding me that I can still love someone I disagree with. And the expensive dental drama is yet another opportunity to see how God provides.

January was a little crazy, but that month is now a block of time where the faithfulness of God is preserved and documented. Maybe it just seemed so long because God decided to pack it with so many opportunities for me to seek Him and to see Him in it.

OK, February.  Let’s see what happens next.

So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.  Psalm 90:2

Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11

Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him. 1 Corinthians 2:9