What Only Winter Can Teach Us
What Only Winter Can Teach Us - volume 3- Seasons of Life
I used to think that I was disappointing God because as a young mom I clung desperately to to life. It was like a fierce animalistic determination. I had to see my babies grow up. It was a compulsion . Yet I would read that Jesus said whoever loved his life would o loose it, but that if you laid it down you would find it. I thought that meant because I wanted to live so desperately, that I wanted to live to see my child ten grown that I somehow didn’t love God enough. (We can be rather silly in our younger years,no?)
This winter I’ve been thinking a lot about seasons. And specifically how they apply to our life stages.
Spring we might classify as childhood through out early twenties, summer as mid twenties to thirties, and so on. At 36, I am solidly in my summer right now . I’ve done so many things that I wanted to do. My kids aren’t babies. I’ve been fortunate enough to stay home and homeschool- that was something I wanted to do. But I’m a very real way, having spent my early adulthood serving my family, I am only now beginning to reply make my art. And so I still find myself with so many things I want to do and see. To me, today, life still seems pretty sweet. But I no longer think that I’m letting God down or that I love life more than Him. I think He designed us this way.
I think of my desire to live contrasted with my grandfather in his last year of life. In May of 2018 he told me that “getting old is for the birds”. He had tired of living. His body was failing. And frankly, he had done what he has set out to do. He had provided for his family, and broken the cycle of abuse that he endured as a child. (Which is rather remarkable. )
I’m wondering if that’s the lesson that Winter has for us. That by the time we are old, we are ready to let go.
I’m wondering if God designed it so that we would find life desirable in our Spring and Summer of life so that even trips and set backs and yes, even trauma, wouldn’t completely rob us of our will to live. So that we could endure. Maybe Autumn is about preparation and Winter is about letting go.
As a Christian I desire to see God’s face. But I’m still in the Summer of my life. Things are really exciting right now. It’s exciting to see my boys becoming men. It’s exciting to see my beautiful daughter become a young woman . I think He is ok with me living in the season He has me in. Life does seem sweet right now. And I trust that when I find myself in winter that eternity will be so irresistible that I will be ready to go.
