To Every Season
The Ebs and Flows of Life
Ecclesiastes 3:1–13
1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.
As I sit and write, I can hear the faint voices of our children playing in our new yard; the wind rustling the leaves that are still clutched to the branches of the maple tree out front, that only dare to let go when the new growth of Spring appears; and the sporadic passing by of vehicles. What is deafening me though is the unrelentless noise of a puppy who is stressed out about the fact that she is inside the house with me, and not out in the yard with the children. She could just rest and sleep the afternoon away in the warmth of the sun, but that obviously is not what she desires to be doing, and she is telling me that quite vocally.
This is the first time in four months that I have actually had a chance to sit down (in what I had hoped would be quiet) and pour out some creativity through writing. However, I should not complain, for I am in such a position that all of these things, even the loud whining puppy, should be counted as joy.
The sun is shining and warming the soil.
The breeze is blowing away at whatever remnants of snow remain, slowly wearing them down to nothing.
Our children are playing happily outside in the crisp March air.
We have a new home that we are officially moved into.
There is food in the refrigerator and clean water to drink.
We have a family dog that has been the most wonderful addition, even though she is still in training.
It has been a wonderful winter free from illness for us.
And the dreams of what our future home will look like finally have a place to expand and become reality.
The perspective of all of this now is finally visible after a hard four months of stress and chaos. Those months felt as though they would never end. In these pressure cooker situations we are quick to loose sight of the eternal goodness that the Lord has planned for us. If you recall from my last post, we were just exiting a time of grief as we mourned the passing of my Gramma. The entire month of September became consumed with funeral and burial plans, which threw an unexpected shift into what I had mentally prepared for as we were setting out to begin the new school year. All of what I had thought our school days would look like became scrambled up and I could not seem to reign anything back in. Then an offer that would be hard to refuse came to us, and we had to consider what we should do: continue renting or purchase my Gramma’s home. We ended up choosing the latter, as you likely have guessed, since I already spilt the beans about moving at the beginning. But saying ‘yes’ to the house, meant the chaos of September was going to continue right on through to the start of the year. Now it was packing and moving time.
At times during it all, I felt like stopping all activities and just going into hiding. Typically my extroverted self wouldn’t allow for that, but my weariness and overwhelm was, and still is driving me to a place of solitude. I never expected that I would desire a quiet at home life like I have been craving so desperately lately. What I am now struggling with is how to face this reality when I have built such a reputation around myself of involvement in all that comes my way. These are not just *me* feelings. I know wholeheartedly that this is a conviction and a call from the Lord, so how do I achieve the change I know I need to make even now, after our moving is dome?
This is where I struggle to obey.
My heart is so heavy with the call to do less and to nurture the precious lives that He has blessed my husband and I with. And with these weighty feelings I have recently been thinking about the fact that 80+ years ago the options of being able to participate and attend so much of what we are able to now, were not options. I understand times have changed and the freedom to travel has become much easier, but does that mean we should indulge ourselves in the luxury of it? Now, more than ever, families are over stimulated with the noise and hustle of participation because it is so easy to participate. I am beginning to realize that this is perhaps not the way it should be, especially as believers.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 2:15-17
It may just be my own convictions causing me to sense this need of a change, yet at the same time I feel as though the year has started out heavy and burdensome for so many. What should we do about this sobering fact? Continue to seek the things that we believe give us joy, when in hindsight they really do just burn us out and wear us down all the more? Should we be stepping back into a life of quiet and solitude?
and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12
But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.
1 Peter 3:4
Should we be considering what really matters in light of eternity, and rid our lives of the noise of all the extras we have been made to think necessary? Are there ways to pair back on the “out of home” extra curriculars while still gaining the excitement of experiencing them? I know what I need to do, and I pray that if you may be feeling similar to myself that you would be obedient to those nudges to do less as well. This is my call to start a #stayhomerevolution. To tend to the things that need tended, whether it is a gaggle of children and their needs, or your husband, or the endless messy kitchen, or the million pieces of laundry. Whatever you are feeling needs greater attention over the *extras* you always seem to make time for, focus on reforming those areas of life and declutter from the rest of what pulls your time and attention away from them.
So here is to the start of doing less and keeping home more.
For more moments of peace and enjoying what we have, rather than always seeking the thrill of more. It may just be for a season, but each season of life we experience, the hard ones and the easy ones, should leave us with an experience that we can be content and thankful for as we acknowledge the Lord’s hand in them all.
Will you join me?
#stayhomerevolution
#notapandemicprotocol