Before me sits a watch. It’s my watch and the battery died some time ago. You might think time is standing still if you were to look at it in its current state. It stopped on the 13th of a particular month – which one, I can’t say. And the times reads 5:54. 

As far as this watch is concerned, time has stood still ever since. But for the rest of the world time has carried on just the same.

Time is simply just a measurement. A frame of reference within history. Similar to the metric system or English system, time can be measured in different ways. You could choose to use light, sound, rotations of a clock, and even sand. When it comes down to it, time is a relative thing. What’s long to you might be short to me.

There are three times in my life when time seemed to stand still. I wasn’t looking at a clock nor was I watching the position of the sun to know for sure. Each time occurred at the birth of my children while I listened to hear their first cry. 

During each of those moments my heart paused, my breathing stilled, and I waited. If you were tracking on a stopwatch I’m sure it would have only been a couple of seconds. But as I stood in that moment, my perception of time was outside of the way I typically experience it.