Seasons and Cycles
Live in the season you are in
In our world today, there is a prevailing idea that we need to put as much into our day as possible. To get up early, to multi-task, to stay up late and push and push to get so much done. As a stay-at-home mom and homeschooler, this is especially prevalent. Oftentimes, a woman in this phase of life feels the need to validate her choice of being home by being extremely busy and keeping her kids busy too.
With electric lights and internet, there is no need for us to stop our day when the sun goes down, or even to slow the activity of the day as we move closer to evening and to sleep. We can keep running full force right up until we collapse, because somehow this makes us feel better and more virtuous, to be doing as much as possible with our time.
Does anyone know when this thinking started to creep into our society?
Perhaps it was the mechanization of industry. Perhaps it was the moving away from the agrarian lifestyle. I am enough of a student of history to know that changes usually happen slowly over time and are due to many variables. No one can point the finger at any one event and say, this is when it all changed.
But as
says “You are not a machine.” We were never created to go and go and do the same things every day all year long. There are natural rhythms and cycles to everything around us and within us. A breathing cycle, a sleep cycle, a yearly cycle for the seasons. So why does society at large see the need to fight against or do away with these perfectly natural and healthy cycles?Our need for sleep, for rest, is God-given and good. We are human beings, created by God with limits and limitations.
has an excellent bit about this in one of his more recent articles The Road to the Machine Man, Part 3.We humans live by seasons and cycles. Once we choose to see those natural rhythms around us and admit that society has tried to push us away from them, we can reclaim our bodies and lives against the onslaught of hurry and worry that pushes us past our God-given limits.
Seasons and cycles are not just for the physical world either. There are times of newness, abundance, falling away, and death in every area of life. Projects we work on or a new school year all have times when things are new and we are learning the ropes. Then a time when everything has gelled and we glory in the abundance of that season. Then things become a little less and eventually die back completely.
Let us not make the mistake of thinking that there is something wrong with being in a season that is different from where you want to be.
If your child is just learning to read, it’s like that tender plant in your garden. It needs some special care to get it to a place of strength and confidence. So does your child. No need to be frustrated if they aren’t reading chapter books in a certain time frame. They will get there in their own time.
How often do we berate ourselves when we are exhausted in our current phase of life rather than respecting our need for rest and recovery after a long time of productivity? By identifying our natural limitations we can lean into those cycles of rest, knowing that there will be a new time of growth coming.