How to Cling to Fleeting Seasons

Chilly raindrops slice sideways through the air.  Trees are blazing with autumn.  The leaves are staying on late this year.  This is my favorite season.  Not the rain, but the colors.  And the crisp sun that promises to return, even in the gray of the sky today.  This season when we light the wood stove, and the kitchen air is heavy with the aroma of apples we've picked at the orchard now baking, and we spend evenings around the table playing games... this is my favorite.

If we get much more rain, the leaves will drop, and I will shake my head at the knowing that winter is on its way.  But right now, it is still autumn.  And pumpkins sit plump and jolly on my porch steps, which still need painting.  I meant to paint those this summer.

My life is like this, I notice.

It's this season of child-rearing which is beautiful and fleeting and full of projects I meant to do and days I have spent doing other things instead.  Because there will always be next spring for porch steps, but days good for apple picking with friends are rare.

I notice that so much of my day is this routine of things I do that just get undone within hours, but in the being here to do them, I am witnessing the season of life I have right now with these kids who grow so quickly.  In the rhythm of life playing out as a series of carpools and swapping out too-small clothes from dresser drawers and shredding boiled chicken for stew, I am here.  In this.  With them.


And hard as I try, I can't slow down time, but I can cling to it by my presence in these ordinary moments, which I am coming to realize are the substance of the comforts of home and family anyway.

The fiery colors of childhood spill out all over my house as piles of shoes that fit feet I can't believe have grown so much and notes about sports and music and little piles of books with dog-eared pages and flour strewn on my kitchen floor and over the little chair pulled up to the counter where my helper has stood.

I stand with my feet in two parts of the same season, as I watch a little one just learning, and I witness the transformation of my oldest ones into young adults, and I feel some days like I'm stradling an expanse so large I may lose my footing, and then some days that space is so small.

And I can't believe how quickly all these years have gone.
Please, eyes, don't miss one single beautiful moment!

The leaves flash their brilliant reds and yellows.  The mountains appear to be on fire above jagged granite.  It's something magnificent to behold.  My oldest paces with her cross country team before the championship.  My son holds his little sister on his lap at the edge of the grass-soaked field, her pink rubber rain boots on proud display above his grass-stained knees.  I breathe deep, the fresh air of autumn rainfall in the Maine countryside.

And I stand for a moment quite still, thankful for a moment like this to savor before the change of season.

"Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power." Psalm 145:4

Seasons of the Dream

This morning, drinking my third cup of coffee and looking out the window at the dirty snowbanks piled high, I feel my thoughts shifting.  Instead of only seeing the gray of winter, I am thinking of what is yet to come.  Thoughts of spring feel good.  Beneath the frozen ground, there is life.  In exactly the right places, there are peonies, irises, roses, astilbe....  I just have to wait until the seasons change, and the beautiful things planted in the soil will push their way up into the daylight.  We will enjoy the fragrance and the beauty of what is now still hidden.

Our lives are filled with seasons, too.  In each of these seasons, the Lord is doing something very specific and very valuable.  We can't shortcut the development that is happening in the winter, while the seeds planted at an earlier time are preparing to burst open.  We can't rush the growth of springtime, just because we want to see the flowers in their full, glorious bloom of summer.  We can't hang on for long to the splendor of the autumn, with its fiery colors and cool evenings.  

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...  He has made everything beautiful in its time."  Ecclesiastes 3:1 & 11

Right now, my heart is ready for spring.  I've been really enjoying the process of reading Kathi Lipp's The Me Project: 21 Days to Living the Life You've Always Wanted.  I'm being more deliberate about infusing my life with the creativity that has been rekindled.  I am reminded that it glorifies God when I'm using the gifts and talents He's given me.  I'm focusing with more intention on what the Lord has planted for dreams in my heart, I'm feeling the growing anticipation of springtime in my own life.   

What are the dreams beneath the surface of your life right now?  Have you stopped to consider them?  Are you at the early stages of chasing after them?  Are you seeing the fruits of hard work you've done investing in the things God has created you to do?  What season of life are your dreams in today?  Be encouraged that God Himself is a Creator, and He has designed you as His workmanship and in His image.  The things you love to do bring you joy for a reason.  Cultivate your dreams.  Let your gifts burst forth and bloom in your life as a beautiful testimony of His faithfulness!

"Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin!"  Zechariah 4:10