Sweet Season

Here today, gone tomorrow.

Hello My Friend!

Seattle is getting decked in spring.  The tulips are out, my friend gave me grape hyacinth to transplant in my yard and the days are finally warming.  We homeschooling parents are going a bit mad as the end of the school year glimmers off in the distance.  Was it just me or did this winter seem long? 

Did you have a nice Easter? 

I had the nicest time with my family.  We were so lazy, it was delightful to sit about, drink tea and enjoy each other’s company.  I’m a spend-time type of person.  Friendship means fellowship and I like visiting.  Lately, my fellowship time changed and it’s taking some adjusting.

One of the best things about having children is all the new things you experience as a parent.  Granted, not all the “first” experiences are pleasant but they are often meaningful.  Which is why, when my girlfriend texted and said “Your car is in my driveway.  Your daughter is here but you aren’t. It’s kind of weird.”  I had to agree.  

If anyone told me 15 years ago that the community I worked over a decade to build would dissolve as silently as a sugar cube I would have been shocked.  Yet dissolving it is, as children age out of activities that once were the routine we built our lives upon.  Granted, new faces are always appearing but I miss the aging faces I first knew. 

As I sit in wonder and thank God yet again for spring, I’m struck by the quiet endings I’m experiencing.  I’ve found myself thankful for the strangest things.

How do you thank someone for being an uptight control freak?  The fact they drove you crazy EVERY time you saw them and made you feel deliciously inferior does nothing to diminish the endless hours they sacrificed as they finished tasks well into the night with an excellence that only a handful of people noticed.  

Or how about trying to convey your gratitude to a couple who baked cookies every night for three weeks so that their club could save money and children could leave an event believing the world was a lovely, sugar laced place where it was the duty of adults to bless children.  What is the value you place on others who make the world safe?

I even found myself deeply appreciating a woman who repeated the same lame joke every week for 3 years.   During the darkest days of my trials, she attempted to convey her concern with clumsy words that made me cringe.  I now view her willingness to acknowledge longsuffering as a graceful friend that visited me faithfully throughout that long season.  

Sadly, those people are moving on from the circle I occupy.  Though the chances are strong I will see some again, the truth is our lives will not nestle up to each other as they did in the past.  When I see them, it will be the exception not the rule.  Our mutual cares and concerns will fade, to be replaced by reminders and reminiscences.   They will take their time and treasure to new places and serve in locations far from my own. 

I think I’m missing them in advance.  

A Time for Everything

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

And so my friend, I welcome spring while at the same time bemoaning the fact the northwest is hard on cherry blossom, it never stays as long as I want it too. I am finding that many things are this way.  The lives we touch are for a season only, as we are propelled along by forces beyond our control.  We are left to simple acts of kindness daily, so  that we might leave sweetness behind when at last we dissolve our communities and move on.  

I’m praying for you this week,

xoxKaren  

PS. thank you for the photo Nikki
Weirdowithacamera.blogspot.com