IT’S ONLY FOR A SEASON

I sat across the table from a few mom friends I hadn’t seen in a while, sipping coffee and eating banana bread, while nearly a dozen kids ran chaotically through my house at what the extroverts call a “playdate” and we introverts refer to as lowgrade torture. I jest…community is important. Even when it is utter chaos. 

My friends and I caught up on how the last several months had been and talked about childrearing, homeschooling, health and all the classic conversation topics on a mother’s list. The other women began commiserating on the woes of potty training and the frustration of trying to teach one of their children to read but how it just wasn’t clicking. Everyone was nodding in agreement at the hardships of these scenarios when one of the women said, “yes, well we need to remember that it’s only for a season. Your daughter isn’t going to start kindergarten in diapers. And your son will get the hang of reading eventually.”

It’s only for a season. It’s only for a season. I silently withdrew from the conversation, feeling isolated and well aware that this sentiment meant to encourage and provide hope did not apply to me and my motherhood experience. My son would start kindergarten in diapers. He would likely never learn to read. Or speak. Or walk. 

It’s only for a season. Where does that expression leave those of us to whom this phrase no longer applies? For some of us, these words leave us feeling anything but encouraged and hopeful. These words only heighten the realization that some “seasons” are really a lifetime and there is no end in sight for our struggles. 

I have felt trapped by the thought of being a caregiver to a disabled son until the day I die. I have felt robbed of the future I hoped for one day. I will be changing diapers, spoon-feeding, and lifting my son in and out of the bathtub until the Lord calls me home. 

While this reality is sobering and hard to swallow, it is actually evidence that my friend’s words “it’s only for a season” are, in fact, true. Lifelong struggle is still for a season, albeit a long one. Although it doesn’t always feel like it, this life we live on earth is a blip on the timeline of eternity.  James 4:14 describes my life as “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”  In Psalm 39, David cries out to God and asks Him to remind him of this truth when he says, “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath” Psalm 39: 4-5

While the thought of mortality and the idea of my life being a fleeting vapor or mist might seem bleak at first glance, it is also a great comfort. As a follower of Jesus, I know my pain and hardship won’t last forever.  I trust the promise that when Jesus returns, “He will wipe away every tear from [my] eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).  My life on earth might be hard. Some hardships will last for short seasons and some for the “season” of my whole life – but even that is temporary. I have the hope of Heaven to look forward to where Christ will make all things new and end all suffering and pain. 

In the meantime, I can trust that God will equip me each and every day to get through what he’s called me to. 

Perhaps you, too, feel trapped in an unending season and feel crushed by the weight of your “no end in sight” circumstances. There is hope for you, my friend. Jesus already defeated death and is offering you an eternity without suffering. And in the vapor of our life on earth, He promises to walk through every season with us—the highs and the lows.