My favorite season of the year is summer. Warm and sunny skies, no early morning rush to get kids to the school bus, no cajoling little ones to get homework done—just carefree, simple joy, gathered with friends and family for backyard barbecues and iced coffees by the pool. It all just makes me feel . . . “Ahhh.” Every winter I start to long for the time when the birds will chirp again, heralding the coming of the season of warmth.
To everything there is a season . . . A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. (Eccl 3:1,4)
The thing is, if God wanted me sitting on a pool floatie day in and day out all year long, then He would not have created winter! As long as I reject the winter He created for me, I will be missing the gifts He has in store for me, specifically in that winter season. They are gifts that, for reasons often shielded from my view until later, simply cannot come to me by way of any other season in my life.
Now I have a friend who dreads the summer, always feeling too hot June through August. Fall, for her, is a refreshing change—winter, even better. What I deem gloomy and bitter, she considers cozy and invigorating! To each his own, I suppose. But the point is this: my “winter” season is not necessarily going to be the same as someone else’s. But regardless of what our winter looks like to each of us individually, one thing is certain: all of us—without exception—are going to experience seasons in life that we like, and seasons in life that we do not. Such as when the joy of birth gives way to postpartum blues, or holiday celebrations followed by the loss of a beloved family member. After the Sabbath rest, comes the week of toil.
In all these events, the Lord’s intention is not that we simply get past the hard parts until we can finally arrive at our “summer” season again. In my youth, that was my mentality, whether it was with regard to the weather, or any other time of trial. As long as I was rejecting that difficult season, focusing on how hard and awful it was, pining away for the time when it would be over and I could move onto better times, I would never be able to see the good that God intended to draw from my trial.
One day, I asked one of my children to help with some house cleaning to prepare for guests who were coming to our home for dinner. Instead of helping with the not-so-fun chore of dusting and vacuuming, however, she decided that a better idea would be to engage in the more fun chore of making the dessert. The cake she baked did indeed turn out to be delicious, the guests loved it, and I appreciated the love that was put into making it. The problem was, I had already prepared a dessert—a fact that my child was not aware of and never thought to ask—and she used some of the ingredients to make her cake that I had set aside for use in the preparation of my dinner! What’s more, the chores that needed to be accomplished before the guests arrived now lay squarely on my shoulders, on top of my own to-do list. I was left to hurriedly and stressfully pick up the slack. I was not happy. As delicious as her dessert turned out—for her it was no sacrifice at all; she thoroughly enjoyed preparing it. Of course, I do not expect my children to trudge through life, ceaselessly offering sacrifices they do not enjoy day in and day out—and neither does God. The Lord wants us to have joy in life—abundant joy! But our joy will never be “complete,” until we realize that “to everything there is a season.”
So how do we find joy in life during our seasons of “winter”—those times of toil, times of trial, times of sorrow? By sticking to the task that God asks us to do, and not trying to do something which we think is “better.” We must seek the hand of God in our circumstances, and ever look for what He is trying to teach us in every season.
Ironically, our greatest lessons in life often come from the depths of our pain. Primary among these lessons is learning to maintain peace in all things—in our joys as well as in our sorrows. It is the single most important lesson in life that we will ever learn, and it is one which we must all learn sooner or later, if we want to live our lives on earth in heavenly joy. In the end, there is only one “sacrifice” that the Lord requires of us as we obediently carry out the difficult tasks which He asks us to do:
He that offers PRAISE as a sacrifice glorifies me . . . (Ps 50:23)
The Lord indeed sends us seasons of trial, but it is only so that we learn to trust Him in all things. There is purpose to our pain and to the difficult tasks required of us, and as long as we think we have a better plan—one which would be more “fun” for us to carry out—we are going to get in the way of the greater good God intends to draw from our circumstance.
The Lord has already prepared the dessert. Right now, our job is to sweep the floors, dust the cobwebs, scrub the ugly mess—and to thank God for the opportunity. Why? Because after we are done, and the temple of our heart is purified, it will be time to sit down with the Bridegroom and enjoy a delicious slice of wedding cake.
Author’s Note: Excerpt from The Safe Haven: Scriptural Reflections for the Heart and Home, Ordinary Time (Weeks 1-7). To purchase, visit Amazon or The Catholic Company, where all other volumes currently in print are also available.
Photo by Rodrigo Curi on Unsplash
