The first time I became a mum was also the first time I heard about having to "enjoy your season". That must have been the advice every well meaning and experienced mum had told me. I heard it so much that I said it a lot to new mums and I still actually do. But not really sure if I understood it then.
I talk about seasons because by now, having lived here in Sydney for 10 months, I can officially say I've been through all of 4 seasons of Australia. Specifically in New South Wales. And being the absolute observer that I am, I found interesting things about it I thought I’d quickly write about here.
Well, it was nearly spring when we moved to our house and this tree behind the big window of ours was a regular normal looking tree with green leaves. No flowers, no fruits, just green leaves and brown branches. Nothing special, really, just a regular tree.
From spring, it quickly became summer and in the summer the tree had more leaves and bore tiny berry-looking fruits we weren't sure we could eat, but ate anyway! Whenever the kids played outdoors and it got too hot, it provided some shade from the burning heat of the sun.
And now, winter. We all know what winter can be like. Although it doesn't snow in Sydney, it can get pretty cold and gloomy sometimes. It is when the days are shorter and the nights long. If the sun stayed until 8pm in the summer, in winter the sun was setting by half past four in the afternoon. So this tree, it stayed empty, almost as if lifeless in the cold.
Not until recently, when I noticed tiny buds coming out of the branches. I thought it was its way of adapting to the cold. But just a few days ago, as I went out to hang some laundry up, I noticed what seemed like fuchsia flowers sprouting quietly and beautifully among the branches, out of the buds. I had to stop and look closer.
All this time I thought it would just grow leaves again after winter. I didn't imagine it to bloom pretty flowers, even after all those cold nights! You see Spring won't start until September. So they were not Spring flowers, they were definitely Winter flowers.
I realised after that how quickly seasons pass and how each one has its own beautiful thing; that if we don't take time to fully enjoy each one, we might just end up missing it all.
So I think it matters to KNOW your "season". Knowing the season you are in somehow gives you a certain peace amidst the countless why's you find yourself asking sometimes. And I mean really know it. I read in a book once that in the summer, one of the reasons the trees have leaves is so that it can serve as shade from the heat of the sun. Pretty basic but so profound in light of why the leaves fall starting from autumn to winter. It's because as the air gets cooler, the leaves fall in order for more sunlight to pass through the branches and therefore spreading more heat. If you know your season, purpose easily follows.
SLOW DOWN and enjoy the LITTLE THINGS. Seasons don't last forever. In fact, it's always changing. Your season now may be too hot, too cold, probably a bit boring, yes. But soon it will be over. Take time to really enjoy it and develop the habit of seeing the positive things about it rather than the ones that are not. Don't neglect the little things because the little things could be the big things, after all.
And so, rather than trying to alter your season, LET IT CHANGE YOU instead. I think we will find more contentment and peace when we actually flow with the season and let it change us, not try to change it. And when circumstances in that season seem to suck the life out of us and we try to find ways to end it sooner than it should, find the courage to stick through it because when we actually do, after everything, we realise we've been changed for the better.
"But in all this, it is still God who makes all growth ever possible and remains faithful in every season."
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