"It's Just a Season"
Thoughts on a common sentiment
Church today, a mix of Christmas hymns and old standards, announcements, corporate prayer, communion, catechism. A deep inhalation of the cross, the gospel, wine and bread, stillness. An exhalation of burden, conviction, shame, shoulds and oughts. The new mix of flocked and green lit trees and other soft decor was a welcome addition, and the smell of warming potluck offerings wafted through the sanctuary as people on worn, wooden pews slowly shrugged off their puffy outwear over the hour.
As the message from 1 Peter began (an important book, methinks, in this era, but I digress), the muted shuffle of folks shifting in place began to be underlaid with a sweet wee voice, a dear child with thin curls sitting between her parents. Her tone was melodious and happy, a dreamy sort of contentedness. I found it charming, and wondered when I last found myself in such a state. The mother, practically minded as we mothers usually are in such an environment, gently escorted her, protesting of course, from the room.
I greeted her afterwards, and shared my delight with her daughter, repeating what I’ve been told countless times (“It’s always loudest to the mother”). And then smiling, she responded with a questioning lilt at the end I’ve heard countless times, “But it’s just a season, right?”
It’s a hopeful sort of phrase, using a word that, defined, means “a time of some continuance, but not for long” (Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language). In other words, simply get through the day, and tomorrow will be different. Wait for this phase in life to pass, the next will be better. Hang on tight, and before you know it, the diapers will go away and someone else will clean the dishes.
It’s a false hope, an addictive sort of promise (or premise) that whatever the hardship is today, it is a relatively short stint and better—or at least different—things are to come. So of course to a young mother this sounds wonderful and relieving and reassuring and even energizing.
But what if tomorrow isn’t better, or different? What if, after changing diapers for 26 years, you are still changing diapers? What if in all of your hanging in there, your loved one still doesn’t communicate with you? Or, what if next Tuesday, instead of a fading adversity, twice the trouble arrives? I don’t think this is what is in mind when we talk about hardship occurring for a season. I think what we’re really doing is offering an easy way out of actually enduring, especially if we are unable to embrace, the moment we are presently in.
To every thing there is a season, you say, agreeing with Solomon in Ecclesiates 3. I agree, wholeheartedly. But who is to say that a season may not be lifelong? Are there not people who walk in sorrow their entire lifetimes? Will you say to them, “Don’t fret; it’s just for a season?” Even Job’s friends could not offer such a platitude, for what mortal can truthfully offer the presumptious comfort of better times ahead?
If I could back up and not have ignored the rhetorical question, I think I would like to answer the young mother this way:
A season? Maybe, only God knows. And if it IS a season—by which you define as a short time until something better or at least different shows up—who is to say, other than God, what the next one will be like? Who knows if today, right here, right now, right in the midst of your difficulty and frustration and sadness and whatever else that might bring you to pining for a better tomorrow or at least time outside of the nursery during service…who knows if tomorrow won’t actually bring greater hardship, more trauma, even less joy than you have in this very moment?
But that sounds far too gloomy in the buzzing midst of cheerful greetings when every conversation in passing is on the way to the fellowship hall for meatballs and cookies.
I discuss this with another woman.
“What if,” I ask, “your ‘season’ is your entire life?”
She makes reference to differences in child raising over time and so forth.
Yes, yes, I see the point made. Spring into summer and all that. Yes, we blessedly have creation order and routine, and each is different, but one season (or hour of the day, for that matter) is not inherently more difficult than another. As much as I long for the high sun of summertime, I also thoroughly enjoy a good fire in my wood stove and a wooly sweater in the winter’s most ravage storms. I think that is my point. How do I manage the hardships of the season (mosquitos, or power outages) while IN the season, and what if I happen to live in a seasonless climate? Can you imagine consoling the apostle Paul with a worldly, “Don’t worry, Brother, this trial is just for a season”. He might agree, as I do, if you mean the “season” is our entire life of battling against sin, the flesh, and the devil.
Perhaps instead of dismissing the current hardness and assuming it will be making way soon to other, hopefully better, life circumstances, we ought to exhort one another to endure in the moment, and to watch against getting so wrapped up in our momentary lives this side of the veil that we are entangled (2 Tim 2:3-4). Perhaps we should rather examine ourselves, and see if we’ve cast for ourselves mocking idolatries of how comfortable we deserve to be, or are reaping the consequences of our own sin(s) and repent of them, so that we might therefore be able to run with patience the race that is set before us (Heb 12:1). Yes, even if we are still changing diapers two decades later. We might even learn to grow in love, and learn to bear whatever our burdens are while believing, hoping and enduring (1 Cor 13:4a, 7), even if it means to be faithful in whatever happenstance, even unto death (Rev 2:10).
Next week at church, I will probably have to remove both of my two girls with Down syndrome at some point in the service. The nine year old is still squirmy and loud. The fifteen year old sometimes tries to regulate herself by vocally stimming. Someone might sweetly give me a half hug afterwards and try to encourage me by reminding me that their noises are loudest to me, the mother. But no one tells me at this point that it’s “just a season”, and I’m grateful for that. Instead, I accept my blindness in the matter, knowing that I may not see the sun for a time, even this side of heaven (Acts 13:11).
Every time of trial or challenge is in the Lord’s hands. Our job in it is to remain faithful, to press forward (that is, pay attention to the diaper you’re currently changing), and to not be weary in well doing (Gal 6:9). For in due season, praise God, we shall reap our heavenly reward!
Faint not, friend; stay present and keep your eyes on Jesus, whatever the season you’re in.
Such encouragement, thank you!