Seasons Of Life.....

Almost every day, I think of a little verse that I have at home upon the wall in my kitchen. It sounds so simple, yet to me it is life’s whole process for each of us summed up. The small verse is quite known. It is this:

"To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven".

I work as a social worker in mostly end of life care. I am an advocate for those that for whatever reason, cannot speak their needs. I am their voice. I comfort those that need a word, a hug, their hand held, to let each know they are still cared for in this world; that they are not alone; that they matter. And, to listen and to hear each person even without their words ever having to be spoken.

I work mostly with elderly yet there are many whose life’s seasons seem to be unfolding too quickly, least in my own thoughts.

Life is amazing. Yet, how blind we do become to the amazements and the miracles all around us, each and every day, because we so easily take life and all in it for granted. After all, we wake up each morning and so easily get caught up into our own routine of things. How blind we do become to so much else around us. As if our sight is only straight ahead on our individual paths, makings for a journey that lacks all that it is meant to be and all that it could be.

How easily we can get so hung up on life’s petty, negatives that actually bind us, and robs us of the joys that are there before us if only we pushed away such thoughts as jealousies and resentments and revenge. Because, those can only make the “seasons” go by that much faster and without the beauty that seasons bring us. At times, short in duration, those emotional thoughts are considered normal in all of us, to come and go, yet held onto without relief; such negative defects rob us of life.

One of the rewards in my job is when I sit with another to do an “assessment” and I am able to learn of another’s life. I am not required to go into the extremes of it, as I do, but I find such worth in knowing fully of another’s life and each passage of it. It is as if one nears the end of their final season, and looks back to tell of each season as they existed and how it is through it. It brings to me a greater understanding of life. I think of my own stages that I’ve gone through, the passages; the seasons of life.

There was a book I read, long ago. How powerful it was to show the greatness in each of us. “The Greatest Salesman in the World” by Og Mandino (has nothing to do with selling things or learning to sell). It’s an amazing book that tells of life and each one of us, what we’ve made of, and in the end there is a description of each of us as the miracles that we are in an unbelievable way of words that appears as a beautiful, explosive grand finale of what we are made of.

I see that miracle daily in my work and so many times I had thought to myself how rewards are so few and far in-between, yet that is another example of being blind to what is around me.

There are times also, I need to become “refocused”; clear my mind. I get silly with co-workers; sometimes a bit crazy and I always blast my music all the way home. I’m grateful for the distance (unless its snowing). My time off is precious to me as is being spontaneous when I am able to be, without a schedule, as work is a schedule. Quite time is priceless; silence is golden.

I recently again looked up and read the entire poem of that little saying that hangs from my wall. Again, well known, but I’d like to share it still. Actually, its not a “poem” at all but verses from the bible, which is most beautiful, meaningful and certainly teaches:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To everything there is a season, and

a time to every purpose under heaven:

A time to be born, and

a time to die;

a time to plant, and

a time to pluck up

that which 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 get, and

a time to lose;

a time to keep, and

a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and

a time to sow;

a time to keep silence, and

a time to speak;

A time to love, and

a time to hate;

a time of war; and

a time of peace.

So often, I have thought, believed and said “everything is for a reason, even if we don’t understand what that reason is, at least at this time. Perhaps some day we will. It has helped me move through difficult times and it has helped to heal. It brings acceptance, for just as it is, at any time. As does these verses.

I see it as this; we born into spring, to bloom and become independent, becoming full as we enter into summer; mature and adult. Then the autumn of our lives as colorful in its restful stage, perhaps retirement, families grown and moved on, simpler before we enter our winter, to fade, to die as though that rose beneath the snow, that with the sun's love in the spring will become again..a rose.