Appreciating the Seasons

By Stacy LaMorte

I love the t-shirt in New Orleans that says, “The Four Seasons of New Orleans: Carnival, Crawfish, Snowball and Football.” While we don’t have the most defined weather seasons here due to our relatively mild winters, we do have definitive seasons of our lives.

It took me some time and “wisdom highlights” in my hair as my friend Karen calls them, to appreciate the fact that all our lives are broken into seasons.

When my children were in diapers and needed high chairs everywhere we went, I felt like that season of my life would never change. When you are in the thick of trying to make sure your toddler doesn’t make too much noise in church, it is hard to realize that they will grow out of that phase in no time. Soon enough, you are sitting with your three tween/teenage children who sit still, don’t fidget, and you can actually sit next to your spouse and enjoy Mass together.

Then I look at the families I know whose children are not at weekly Mass with them regularly anymore due to being off at college or they have moved away.  Some of the parents are now also grandparents, doting on their grandchildren, and it warms my heart. I realize these are, God willing, the next seasons of my life.

Whether you are in a particularly enjoyable season of your life or one that you don’t love so much, realize it is just that – a season.

Seasons change and pass in time, and then we are on to something new. God wants us to appreciate the season we are in right when we are in it for what it is.  Soak in the positives and realize the negatives won’t hang around forever.  As my Nanny, who lived to be 100 years old, would say, “This too shall pass.”