Every Season Will End

There’s been a lot of talk about the seasons lately…specifically two seasons: winter and spring. We’re all talking about these two seasons at the bus stop and in line at the grocery store. We’re talking about them on the phone with our friends and with complete strangers while we wait for our coffee at Starbucks. And all this talk is really just variations on the following two sentiments:

“I am so sick of winter!”

and

“I am so ready for spring!”

Anyone else feel this way? It’s been a difficult winter for so many people this year. And most of us would gladly be done with winter today if we could find a way to make that happen. But unfortunately, winter is still here and we are stuck dealing with it. We can’t wish it away no matter how hard we try. And so we are forced to not only tolerate it, but to find a way to live our regular daily lives while also shoveling snow and driving through ice. One day, hopefully not too long from now, Mother Nature will show us some mercy and spring will arrive. But there’s nothing we can do to speed up the process.

Have you ever noticed that our own lives go through seasons too? Sometimes, in the moment, I feel like things are just happening in my day-to-day life without any rhyme or reason. But then I look back and I can see the pattern…the theme…the season. I can see seasons of growth and seasons of stagnation. Seasons of big change followed by seasons of calm. Seasons of great joy followed by seasons of great pain. Some seasons last only a few months while others seem go on for years. Some seasons feel like summer. They warm you and relax you. They bring you such happiness and peace that you want them to go on forever. And some seasons feel the way this year’s winter feels. They are cold and brutal, chilling you to your bones. They bring you such unhappiness and disappointment that you are desperate for their end.

Which leads us to one of life’s most bittersweet lessons: every season will end, and you can’t control when. The warmth of summer will last only as long as it lasts, and then it will pass whether you want it to or not. But that also means that the cold, hard winter will last only as long as it lasts, and then it too will pass.

Right now, it feels like winter will never end. And yet, one day we will wake up and realize that spring is here. The sun will shine on our faces and the flowers will poke their heads out of the ground. The snow will melt and the days will grow warmer. Imagine how wonderful the warmer months will feel and how grateful we’ll all be for spring and summer when they finally arrive. Because it is only in living through the difficult and brutal winter that we are reminded to be grateful for the warmth of summer.