“How long was God before He created the earth?” Beatrice asked the other day, and then answered her own question: “Oh! Ha! He never started, so how could you measure?” Time belongs to this Age and Era, a measurement that someday will be swallowed up in Eternity.

Here and now, we measure. We are finite. We wait, we dread, we long for, we hurry through, we wistfully recall. Time.

We have beginnings and ends. Right now, we are counting the weeks since #7’s beginning: twelve. I am counting down the days till the end of nausea, and maybe a bit more energy? We are tracking the growth of fingers and toes, amazed at the difference a week can make in that secret place. I am having to be creative in getting dressed each morning. The online counter says, “You may notice a thickening of your waist,” and I laugh. I passed that moment long ago. I am officially bridging the gap between high-waisted-jeans-that-were-comfy-but-aren’t and full fledged maternity options. Sometimes, measuring time happens right before our eyes. Crocuses burst, tummies grow.

And longer measures, too: a gold band that, nearly fifteen years later, is taking the shape of a man’s finger. No longer exactly round, but a unique circle that represents days and days of covenant growth. Words spoken from a black book that have slowly taken the shape of our unique lives, blended through joys and pains, agreements and not-agreements, and day after day of never looking back. I am his and he is mine, that band says, and fifteen years later the lines between us two are growing blurry. It’s a miracle that happened in a moment at an altar, but that is happening as we live it out. Measuring time. Things take time.