I loved growing up in Michigan. While some might speculate that it is because of the greatest College Football team in the entire world calling it home (The University of Michigan Wolverines), it is surprisingly not football related at all. The reality is that my love for Michigan is largely because of the four seasons that we were able to experience each year of spring, summer, winter, and fall.
Spring was always exciting! One could hardly wait to begin to wear short sleeves and to be able to spend more time outside with friends. Sure, there were still some cold nights and times that I remember snow on the opening day of baseball season for the Detroit Tigers, but there was just something in the air that made one believe that better days were ahead. It was the reading of the seed catalogs and the preparation for the garden that year with the hopes of growing the best crop ever. The dreams of the largest pumpkin and the yearly ritual of hoping that the strawberry plants would produce. Maybe that is what I loved most about the spring. The feeling of something better being just around the corner and of the hopes and dreams that were much larger than what I had planned for the garden.
Summer was spectacular as well. A time to be outside from sunrise to sunset. We would gauge the time to return home in conjunction with the time that the streetlights would come on in the neighborhood. Until they did, it was full speed ahead doing things that kids do, literally wearing ourselves out having fun. There were few worries or concerns, after all we didn’t have school to worry about, and we were too young to have regular employment. There may have been the occasional weight of finding a new girlfriend or fixing up the old bike so that you would reclaim the title of being the fastest kid on the street, but life was lived in a carefree manner. Perhaps that’s why I recall those summers as being so spectacular. I wasn’t worrying about things like I do now. I simply expected each day to be at least as good as the one before, and I trusted others blindly to provide and to protect.
Then fall arrived. A time of transition. The time when I would pray for the Lord to return quickly so that I wouldn’t have to leave the little Elementary School that I attended and transition to the big Junior High School downtown. All jokes aside, although I did pray such a prayer, the fall was more than just a transition in my educational journey. It was also the time when we would harvest buckets of things from the garden, and when the leaves would begin to turn color and eventually drift to the ground. The days grew shorter, and the fun times were fewer, and it was as if subconsciously we knew the days ahead were going to be different. In looking back, maybe that is why fall was always so special. If there had been some bad days or bad experiences, fall reminded me that nothing lasted forever and that change is a constant.
And then there was winter. The snow and the ice and then more snow and more ice! The wind and the below zero temperatures that required the cutting and the hauling of firewood. Winter was a time of hunkering down a little and enjoying things in a different way. There was more reading done, and more care put into things that were usually routine such as driving and making sure the vehicles had plenty of gas. I don’t remember a short winter. They were all long, cold, in many ways boring and the period where life simply slowed down to a crawl. Remember the enjoyment of the long and full days of summer? Winter brought the opposite of that, an enjoyment of shorter and slower times.
Michigan and childhood memories are but a memory now, but I still find myself in different seasons of life and I believe that if you took the moment to reflect, you might admit the same. As much as we might want it to be a reality, we are never static in one season. We love the summer, but we dread the winter. We have hope in the spring, but we have some apprehension about the fall. Despite our desires the pages of the calendar continue to flip, and the seasons of our life continue to move from one to the next. As much as we dread moving from fall to winter, it still inevitably happens.
The Psalmist wrote some words that speak to this when he wrote:
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God. (Psalm 90:2)
He went on to add a few verses later:
For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night. (Psalm 90:4)
The heart of what he is thinking of is found even further down in the chapter when he says:
Teach me, Lord, to number my days that I may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)
Can I encourage you to live well in the season where you find yourself now? Remember that He has been, will be, and is the same God in all seasons (Psalm 90:2), and that the place where we are right now is a mere moment in time when we look at the big picture (Psalm 90:4).
Lord help us to know the importance of living well in whatever season that we are in (Psalm 90:12).
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