Tis’ The Season
I love this time of year. The lights. The festivities. The food. The memories. Memories I remember from my childhood. I am creating new memories that will hopefully be etched in our children’s hearts one day. It’s easy to enjoy this season. To countdown until Christmas day, and then just a week later embark on a fresh start as we welcome the New Year.
I wish all seasons were as easy to enjoy as this one.
When I think of parenting, many other seasons come to mind. The newborn season, the toddler season, when going out to a sit-down restaurant, isn’t as tricky as it once seemed to be. The season when some of the kids can shower/bathe themselves, and I’m not reminded of my age as I have to lean over the tub to wash a little one.
I’m reminded of the season when Brent and I were first married. Those early years, you know, the ones pre-kids. When we thought we had it all figured out. When bedtimes didn’t exist, we didn’t need an afternoon cup of coffee just to get through the day. When we could binge-watch Lost and sleep in till noon and then wake up and decide what movie we wanted to see at the movie theater that evening. Oh, how I miss going to the movies.
I’m reminded of the seasons as a Military wife—the ones where you wait for a new assignment. You wait for the deployments to come. You wait for the deployments to end. The seasons you miss out on community and friendships because you don’t make the effort to plug in, knowing you’re like a traveler passing through. You wait for your new assignment so you can plan a move and start the cycle all over again.
No matter my season, I always find myself waiting for the next.
When all the kids are potty trained, when all the bedtime wars are over, when all the kids are in school, when we move, when we get settled, after the holidays, after the kids are over their sickness, when I can get on top of the housework, when I can lose the couple of pounds I’ve been wanting to. When I can finish that one project or when we get out of the military, buy our forever home, settle down, and the list goes on and on.
Could we just enjoy the current season we are in? I am constantly battling to find a rhythm between productivity/setting goals, and enjoying the here and now. Surely, we can do both.
As I prepare my heart for this season, I reflect on my current season as a wife and mom. My hope for 2017, since I don’t like to set a quote-on-quote New Year’s Resolution, is that I can truly learn to enjoy the season I’m in. Enjoy the rental house we reside in during this assignment, and not get caught up in my Fixer-Upper aspirations but cannot achieve them. Enjoy the three times I go back and forth from the school picking up my half-day kindergartener and 3rd grader (even though it feels like I reside in my van more than I do our house some days), enjoy the time we are assigned in Virginia, and not day-dream about a forever home and the day we settle down.
Because the truth is that may not be God’s plan for us. We have no way of knowing where he will take us. And think of all we could miss out on as we wait for the next thing or season.
For all the mommas out there, let’s welcome 2017 by enjoying all the seasons it will bring. The good, the bad, the tired, the hard, the chaotic because that’s all part of His plan. None of it is wasted.
I wish you acceptance in whatever season you are in and a very merry Christmas!
