Changing Seasons

Favorite seasons

When I was a child, I loved spring. I also loved fall. In the fall, school was already in session. Cooler days allowed sweaters. Trees changed from green to yellow, to orange, red, scarlet, and brown. In the pasture, hickory nuts fell to the ground and we mosied there with our buckets to pick those hickory nuts. We used a hammer or a stone to break the nuts open and picked the meat from the shells. Of special  importance was the ability to pull at least some meat out of a shell in one piece. We needed the whole pieces to decorate the top of Mama’s birthday cake.

After autumn and the birthday cake, came winter. We relished snowy days and “no school tomorrow” nights when we stayed up late to read. We built igloos in the yard, created snowmen and played fox-after-the-goose, walked the lane to sled down the hill, and waited for spring.

In the spring, days were warmer and the trees burst into green. Birds sang and built nests and we ran nimbly across the newly-mown grass in the yard. Mama watched the birds from the kitchen window and exclaimed over sunsets. 

Summer brought relief from school and time to swim in the river, build hay houses in our uncle’s field, and sleep under the stars at night. We created in the sandbox, played in our life-size playhouse, and took turns on the swing that hung from the maple tree in the yard.

Each season was the best for that time. The season I like least, in some ways, is getting older. It isn’t for sissies, and sometimes it’s hard. Life is like seasons. Life is full of seasons.

The cycle continues

We move from one season of loss to a season of birth, and back again to loss. We cannot – though we wish – change the passing of time.

I am in such a season – I gain new friends, and bid farewell to others. I watch changes from a diagnosis and wait for the birth of another grandchild. My neighbor and friend of thirty-plus years faces the possibility of her last holiday seasons with her family while her generations continue. Birth and loss. Blessing and pain. My sisters have new diagnoses, and waiting for answers is hard.

The cycle continues – and so does the promise. The promise is, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.”  He continues His promise in Lamentations: “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.”

In every season, He is faithful. This I know.

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Photo credit: Carolyn Wilman via pixabay.com