This Season

It’s 5:30 on a Wednesday. It’s just after Christmas and I’ve already taken down the tree. The music is playing in the background and I just put dinner in the oven. The kids are downstairs playing and I’ve just sat to write as I feel my Spirit stir and the tenderly missed inspiration of words jumps onto to page. 

I don’t get evenings like this very often anymore. The season we are in is busy to say the least. Between working, school, multiple trips to the ice rink a week, and let me stop there before I draw you too deeply into the chaos, my life is full in this season.

I can’t sit here and pretend like I’ve been captured by contentment because that would lead you astray. I spend most of my days missing the past. Missing the diapers, the sleepless nights, and the illusion of control and still. It’s hard not to look back at the good days and hard not to look forward to the ones I’m dreaming of in my mind. 

It’s really hard to be grateful in this season and even harder to take it in. I can hear every seasoned mom telling me to slow down, take it in, enjoy this season because it flies by. I can hear you and I agree with you. What I find difficult is actually doing it. 

There is so much good in this season. There are deep conversations and moments that I cherish with children who are now becoming real humans with opinions, and values, and dreams. This is special, but even as I think of this it saddens me thinking of the conversations that I’ve missed in all the busyness and I can hear the endless beckoning of the relentless “mom-guilt” voice in my head. 

This season is busy. This season is amazing. This season is passing right before my eyes. I feel it’s coming out of this season that I will need God the most. I needed him IN the season of baby’s and toddlers more than I needed my own breath, but I feel it’s in the EXIT of this season that I will need him the most. I can already feel the "what if’s" creeping up. I will need him to guide me through the thoughts of regret and hopefully continue to set me free from the guilt that comes with being a far from perfect parent. 

But that was His plan all along. He wants to help me do my best and then fill in all the gaps when my kids grow and realize they need more than any earthly parent has to give. 

Someone once said that it’s these years that are just scary. I can agree with that and I also feel it’s a time of just holding on for the ride. Who needs theme parks when you have teenagers?

I’m sharing this not because I have an answer, or because I’ve figured it out. I’m sharing this for anyone who is in a season, maybe not even this one, who needs to know that you are not alone. This is hard, life is hard and if you haven’t read the book of Ecclesiastes, I highly recommend that you do. 

King Solomon was the wisest man to have ever lived. He wrote this book of the bible and I find it oddly comforting reading from someone as great and wise as him that life is simply vanity. That what it all comes down to is Jesus and everything else is simply just a blip on the radar with no great reward at the end other than that of death. 

To some this is a terrifying reality but to us, who have Jesus, it is the greatest reward there ever could be. It is the only reward worth having. 

So to sum it up, this season is hard, and I’m sure the next will be too. But it will be ok and I am not alone, and God is good.