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My first husband, who passed away long years ago, was the Bob in this true story that changed the lives of many of us.
THE WATCH
It was the mid-1960s. Two young men, brothers, both had a love of flying small planes. Both worked at the same small airport.
Both wanted the aviator’s watch.
John, the elder brother, got the watch for his birthday. It had all the doodads such a watch comprises.
He loved it…
The younger brother, Bob, teasingly complained.
John put on his new watch and took up a plane, asking if Bob wanted to come.
Bob had work to do at the hangar and said he’d go the next time.
No Next Time
There was no next time.
The plane crashed and John was killed instantly.
The aviator birthday watch stopped at the moment of impact—the moment of John’s death.
The watch was eventually found in the plane’s remains and was given to Bob. He didn’t want it now.
The man at the watch repair shop said it wasn’t worth the money. Bob still had it repaired.
It once again, told the time. It once again registered the minutes, and the hours given us by a loving Father, Who brings good from the bad, if we put our time in His Hands.
The watch continued on when people didn’t think they could.
Hours, Days, Years
It showed hours, days…and years passing.
It told us when it was time to marry.
I was late arriving the day I married Bob.
We later timed everything with the old watch.
Time for work, time to come home, time for the bread to bake, labor pains, and the time each of our six children was born.
Minutes, hours, and years passed quickly.
—We even looked at the watch when our eldest child married.
She was on time.—
I don’t know where the old watch is now.
I like to think it still tells time somewhere for someone.
The Lesson
What I do know is the lesson God taught through that old watch.
When life crashes in and we think everything is over, God still holds our time in His Hands.
With His Help, we can start up again for the time ahead–the moments that lie still to be experienced, lived, learned, and enjoyed. There is…” a time to every purpose under the heaven,” the Bible says, “A time to be born, and a time to die.” (Ecclesiastes 3: 1-2)
There is time in between to LIVE, to trust, and to BE.
But it is up to us to pick up the pieces from the ashes and to put our time back in His Hands, and to get up and to go on…and on…and on…..through all the moments, taking them in faith and love, one at a time, as they are given…
God used an old watch to teach me that.