A Season At Home

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. - Edith Sitwell

One winter I napped with a newborn daughter beside me, or sometimes she laid on my chest, but either way as the morning hours turned to afternoon we dozed, ate, and experienced the newness of life. I prayed, I promised impossible things. I planned her days would be perfect, all of them. The perfect balance of activities,play, learning, rest.

I prayed for her teachers and her future husband, really I think I covered every area of her life present and future with prayer. It was a perfect winter with my first born and my husband and our small apartment I was decorating with way to much pink. I remember contentment and security, not because we had money, because we didn’t, but because I felt like I was right were I was meant to be. For a season I lived with abandon, trusting fully in God.

As winter turned to spring plans for college and a career seemed to fade. I hated the title of housewife or homemaker but since the world insists on titles for everyone I became what I said I never wanted to be. So, let the world call me something I don’t like. I was enjoying life to much to care. I noticed something as time went by, I actually loved domestic arts and I was good at cooking, decorating,sewing, and creating.

The problem was I started to feel like I was living a lie. My mind was telling me I needed to do work that made money. I needed to do something considered productive by the masses. So many lies coursed through my mind.

All the while my husband is telling me I am working, I am doing something productive. When the heart and the mind begin a battle it leads to depression. We forget who we really are,confidence flees, and before we know it we are no longer at home within ourselves nor home with the family we claim to love.

That winter afternoon with my daughter was twenty-plus years ago. From this perspective, sitting here now writing, I wish someone had said this is only a season. Maybe a three month season, maybe a five or ten or fifteen year season. Don’t let lies enter in and dictate your life, enjoy what God is calling you to do right now.

Each of us were carefully wrought in the depths of the earth, fearfully and wonderfully made. Embrace whatever season you are in, even if it’s a difficult one that doesn’t feel like it makes any sense. Because if we love Him He will work it out for our good. Remember God wants to give you the desires of your heart, but He also wants us to be holy.

God is forever perfecting us, let Him do His work. Let Him change your desire to match up with His. Trust in His goodness more than the lie that He is cruel.