Personal reflection on seasons of life

‘To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven...’ Ecclesiastes 3:1

I have been thinking about the concept of seasons. When our children are small, things change so quickly. Already my three month old is no longer the completely floppy newborn he once was. My two year olds are learning more and more, showing their unique personalities and surprising me daily by the things they say and do. Often we will just be getting used to one pattern of daily routine and activities, when it is time to move on to something new. But simultaneously, it can seem as though time is standing still and that nothing will ever change.

Why I have I been thinking so much about this? Well, largely because I am human! My boys are at the stage where they need a lot of input and attention from their parents; that is completely normal, right and healthy. But there are days when I have felt a little tired and frustrated, sometimes wishing that perhaps I could complete a conversation with a friend. Or maybe enjoy a peaceful walk in the park without the constant stream of unusual questions arising from their curious and hungry minds!

But considering these things, I came to reflect on how fast they are growing, and how there will come a time when they might not want to have so much of my input and involvement in their lives. Naturally, they will be able to do more things independently, and that is right and to be encouraged. But these intense days of discipline, teaching, nurturing.... they will not continue as they are forever. They are but for a season. And the last thing I would want to do is push them away, to do anything to break the wonderful bond we have, and then to wonder why I do not have the relationship with my six year old, or my teenager, that I might desire. Similarly, when being asked questions such as, ‘Why can’t I reach the sky?’ or, ‘Why is a buttercup yellow?’, the last thing I would want to do is to stifle that thirst to learn about the world.

As parents, our God-given responsibility is for our children. Proverbs 22:6 encourages us to ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it’. We are not promised that this will be an easy task! But what a responsibility, and what a privilege we have been given. Nobody else can do a better job. Nobody else can offer that unique combination of love, discipline and abundance of time to our children. 

I simply want to encourage other parents of young children who are seeking to hold on to the responsibility of educating them holistically at home. It is not easy. Some days are filled with delight, fulfilment and joy. But other days are tiring, some more than others. It can feel as though you are on a never-ending treadmill, repeatedly correcting the same errors, disciplining the same disobedience, answering the same questions, cleaning up yet another cup of spilt milk! As we seek to do what is right and best, we can pray that God gives us all we need for this current season of life. 

2 Corinthians 9:8 ‘And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.’

Isaiah 40: 30-31 ‘Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.’

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