Swatch.

We’ve done all sorts of things to it. Used it, saved it, ruminated on it, even tried to conquer it, buy it, tell it. Yet, after all these years, we’ve never succeeded in our relentless conquest. At best, we’ve managed to use it, tell it, but at worst, we’ve made ourselves slaves to it, succumbing to anxiety, impatience, frustration.

Time.

We’ve never succeeded to conquer it, but we’ve found our way around it. We’ve bought ourselves fancy watches with shiny faces, metallic chains from top-end stores, pretending that we’ve managed to own some of it, conquer at least part of it. But each time we take a harried glimpse down at our ornated wrists, we’ve tied ourselves more tightly as bond-slaves to it.

Time.

We buy ourselves the most expensive of watches, and try to occupy every moment of our days. Some of us can’t even take it off for a moment. We try to look Busy and Important, and a fancy watch helps portray that image well.

Exactly two years ago, Kitesong was published and plans to build an orphanage for the disadvantaged children of Nepal was established. One year and a half ago, plans to turn Kitesong into an online animation and audio-book CD so as to raise more funds were discussed, and somewhere around that time, I fell ill to Anorexia.

One and a half years. It went by so quickly.

Two days ago, one and a half years after I first stepped into the recording studio to narrate the audio-book version of Kitesong, I found myself back in that same room- this time, finally savouring the fruition of the finished product. We sat around in a circle, and it was Sydney who said, “I’m sorry I took so long to compose the song!”

But the rest of us were hardly sorry. My publisher EK, his wife Aunty A and myself were hardly sorry at all.

” We’ve something beautiful to tell you,” Aunty A said to Sydney.

I continued, ” Did you know, that after one a half years of not hearing much news from both parties, you, as well as the missionaries from Nepal contacted me on the same week. Two weeks ago, when you called Aunty A to tell her that the song was ready for the Kitesong CD, the missionaries from Nepal visited Singapore and invited me to their gathering to share with me their new developments for their plans to help the children at the Nepalese orphanage.”

If we had produced the CD version of Kitesong any earlier, it would have been, in some sense, quite redundant- the books and other fundraising activities had been sufficient for what the project was at the time. But in God’s time, a year and a half later, there were new needs for the Nepalese childen and the CD had now provided the answer for those new needs. Both parties never knew what the other had planned. It seemed more than a coincidence, for the two worlds to fit perfectly like puzzle pieces at once, and we all exchanged knowing glances. We each learnt an important lesson that night.

We wear watches, allow ourselves to be busied and anxious by it, but how often do we let ourselves be amazed by the beautifully divine orchestrations planned by the Creator of Time Himself?

“And there’s another part to this Story, I think,” Aunty A looked at me and smiled. ” I think the completion of the song composed for the Kitesong CD is also a symbolic mark of God’s healing and restoration in your life.”

And so the four of us sat there, in the darkened room of the recording studio and rejoiced, marvelling at the beauty of coming full circle. It was Sydney who unleashed the celebratory victory cry of triumph, “Aha, thank God for my tardiness!”

It was a beautiful moment.

I thought about what Aunty A said for a long time, measuring what the word healed meant. Didn’t she know I was still seeing the therapists, and that I’m still on maintenance for medication? She did- so why the word healed?

And I thought about the many victories won of late. The full days which went by without Ed following me, the disappearing acts of Ele, the comments from friends about my emanating radiance, friends once again returning to me for help, counsel and advice… And I thought about the seniors-meet-juniors talk I had chaired just last week, where I had addressed the entire junior batch of medical students and encouraged them in their arduous journey in medicine, and the number of them who came up to me after the talk to thank me for re-inspiring them, for being part of the organising committee. I thought about the gathering I was organising at my place this weekend, where doctors and students would have the chance to build bonds and share visions, and how satisfying and fulfilling it had been to plan, organise, birth it. I thought about my serving and helping to teach the little children at Sunday School in church.

And the word healed had new meaning.

One and a half years. How long we had waited. But we forget, that on God’s calendar, the timing had been perfect. It had been right on schedule.

It had taken forever for the planets to move, but we now saw how it needed just that amount of time for the stars to coincide in perfect alignment.

Every doctor and medical student needs a watch. We need watches which not only have second hands, but also with twelve divisions around the clockface, so we may take the pulse of our patients accurately. I had an expensive Swatch watch bought years ago which exasperated me. It is impossible to take a pulse rate accurately with it because it has no divisions. It cost me a hundred and twenty dollars at the time. The last time I visited the Swatch shop, its price had risen to a hundred and sixty dollars. I thought about it for a long time- I hated the idea buying another watch and owning two, especially when its purpose ought to be purely functional.

“Just get another cheaper one, and use this one for special occasions,” said my friends.

But what am I going to do with two watches? For a long time I joked about how I would eventually find an old man on the street and give it away because I wouldn’t need it.

Time. We even try to look good telling it. And I keep forgetting, that it doesn’t belong to me. No matter how many watches I own, nothing will help me utilise it so fruitfully as to entrust it to God, and faithfully guard the gift I was given.

So I made a decision.

We had wanted to meet for a long time- this Singaporean lady, a missionary to Nepal and one of the caregivers for the Nepalese orphans, had housed me during part of my stay there. When I stayed at her place in Nepal, we were shocked to discover we had the same birth date. She is just three years my senior, 24 years of age, and had dedicated her life to loving and serving the poor and needy. I almost felt God telling me He had created this special woman on the same date as me, to go before me as an example of how I may serve people and Him in the future, fulfilling that same calling. She is a simple lady. Missionaries hardly spend on themselves. I remember the watch she wore the last time I saw her. It had a faded face, and a cheap strap. She, however, was beautiful, bubbly as always.

Time. I remember how it was in the most uncertain and frustrating of times, that the missionaries always taught me to trust God with it.

“So what’s been up with you?” She asked.

I shared with her about my enjoyable time studying in the hospital, about my healing from the illness, the Kitesong CD, about what God had been whispering to me about Time and His beautiful timing. Spot-on, as always.

And then I told her about my watch, about how I had learnt about Patience and Waiting, about how the price of my watch had inflated but that I hadn’t the need for it because I only needed a cheap functional watch with twelve divisions that was of use for my patients, about how I went specially to the shop to get it re-polished and tweaked so I could give it away to someone who needed a fancy dinner watch more than I did…

… and that someone placed in my thoughts and heart over the last few weeks was… her.

” I just hope you don’t mind that I’ve worn it before, but I really just want to bless you with it because of all you’ve taught me about servitude and humility and loving others. I felt so strongly to give this to you, and I really hope it fits you.”

I put it on her wrist, right next to her cheap, faded watch which she had bought at a flea market in Nepal. It fit perfectly.

Her eyes widened in shock and gratitude. And for a moment, we just sat in smiling silence, in the humidity of a coffeeshop, over simple food, and basked in the richness and expanse of Time.

“Thank you so much for sharing,” she said. “I really needed to hear that. And now, every time I look at this watch, it will always remind me about what you said, to trust God always, and not to be anxious about my future.”

Time.

We attach all its value in the second and minute hand of an overpriced watch. Perhaps we are the ones who need to put less value on an accessory on our wrists, who need to humble ourselves and give up trying to overtake it, who need to put our eyes on what’s Up there, instead of taking anxious downward glimpses all the time.

But let’s for a moment, perhaps, just take our watches off, just for a moment, and watch Time go by over milk and jam and scones on a lazy afternoon, and remember that we needn’t worry, that we needn’t be anxious, that we can live every moment to its fullest without bringing the fretful future into today simply because-

– It’s all in His hands.

Right on schedule, as always.