Embrace Your Season

All Photos by Rebecca Tredway Photography

I really intended to get something done this morning. Something of merit. Something of worth. Something that when my husband said, “So, what did you do today?” I’d have a respectable answer. But instead it seemed like one crisis lead to another. The baby’s morning diaper necessitated a morning bath.  A trip into my daughter’s room to help her get dressed ended 20 minutes later when we finally got things tidy (a process which was completely undone by lunchtime). The four year-old wanted to catch invisible bunnies in the backyard. The six year-old wanted to read me the grocery store ads that came in the mail. And all of the sudden it was lunchtime.

It’s so easy to feel overwhelmed with the mundaneness of my life. I feel unable to make meaningful investments in the world or the lives of those around me because my hands are constantly busy with the work of raising my four little blessings/terrors. I don’t want to give myself excuses for hiding away or living a life that’s out of control because of the demands of motherhood, but I am realizing that this is a season.

Ecclesiastics 3
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

I can already see how things have changed. This season is passing quickly. Like a summer thunderstorm it is intense, but it will be over soon. When our baby was born, I had a five year-old and 2 two year-olds. It felt like I was responsible for every single care-taking aspect of everyone’s life. I picked out outfits and wiped noses and prepared meals and slept in winks between feedings and toddler bad dreams. And already those days have passed. Eighteen months later and all but the youngest can buckle their own carseat, pick out a snack, take themselves potty. It feels like a new world has opened up.

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

But I continue to mourn this season of my life. Baby days are passing too quickly, but I still feel so far from being able to have any personal freedom. I long to be more of a help to those around me. I want to feel significant. I want to contribute in ways of value to my community. I know my mothering role matters, but I can still feel isolated and lonely when I think about all the opportunities I long to take advantage of, but can’t. For me, this is not yet that season.

This is an intense season of investment in my children. The days are long (the nights are longest!), but the years are short. I love to garden and so often see the parallels between raising good food and raising healthy children. This season of constant cultivation of the lives of my children won’t last forever, for better or worse. I am protecting little seedlings from the harshness of the world.  I’m nourishing them. I’m disciplining out the weeds that spring up. This is not a little summer job, but a full-time commitment to being sure their needs are met, their hearts are heard and they know their worth.  It is hard work and my children are rarely grateful. I persist in parenting them with consistent love and consistent discipline even when they resist because I believe the results are worth it.

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

There will come a day when I will no longer be in this season. My hope is that my children will show the fruit of having parents who invested in them and loved them. They will be strong enough to stand on their own. They will no longer need my constant care and supervision. They will be ready to invest themselves in the care of others because they saw the model of my sacrificial love for them. Of course, there is no guarantee that our kids will turn out as we wish. But that doesn’t mean we don’t do our faithful best and pray for that outcome. And we intentionally choose to love THIS season, whatever season we’re in.

What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.