A Season for Everything

March 7, 2022

The winter season in Northeastern Ohio is stuttering to an end and spring is on the way. Not nearly as fast as most of us would wish. This winter has been a hard one. Still struggling with COVID, hard episodes of flu being passed around, and major snowstorms. In the beginning I always love winter and the accompanying holidays, but by the time it’s ending, I am usually quite ready for it to be over.

Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” He was talking about far more than the four seasons we experience here. He was speaking of life.

I attended a high school basketball game this past week. Being there brought back so many different memories. I remembered how I felt at that age playing basketball for Canton McKinley High School. I watched seniors, realizing this was the last time they would wear the jersey and play for their high school. It can be very hard to grasp and process the changing of the seasons because we have a tendency to think that things will continue as they always have. Our emotions and even fear can run high as we begin to realize that time has marched on, and things are not as they were, and we never seriously considered that things would change.

Yet we know it’s true. Geoffrey Chaucer said in about 1374, “All good things must come to an end.” He was expressing the truth that all great things, no matter how wonderful, have a shelf life. They won’t last forever. Any parent of adult children can identify. The days of raising children are so full and busy. We seem to be chasing ourselves, always running children here and there, attending ballgames, recitals, teacher’s conferences. Money seems to be in shorter supply as we work to buy shoes, pay sports fees, and feed the family. Some days we might have a fleeting thought about what it will be like without all these responsibilities. But then suddenly those days are gone. Suddenly we are empty nesters. We don’t have all those wonderful responsibilities. Our days aren’t full of little people’s needs and schedules. But we don’t feel the relief we occasionally thought we might. Though we are happy to have beautiful young adults, there’s a part of us that mourns the days that are gone, never to return..

Being at that ball game took me on a trip through my own memories. It reminded me once again that I need to live in the moment, enjoying and appreciating what I have and what I’m going through because eventually it will come to an end. Alonzo Mourning, former professional basketball player for the Miami Heat, said as his pro ball career was ending, “I know that all good things must come to an end, and I have had an incredible ride. I just want to end it on the right note.” His heart really resonates with mine. That’s how I want my life to be.

No question, we will all have a little bit of melancholy when we think about the wonderful days that are past. But we can choose to let gratitude that we had them at all overwhelm us, and it will transform our mental state. I want to encourage you, whatever season you’re in, to refuse to wish it away. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Learn everything you can because once it is gone, it’s gone. But you can enjoy forever the fragrance of beautiful memories if you chose to enjoy it while you had it, and as Alonzo said, end it on a good note of gratitude.

Enjoy today. It will just be here for 24 hours.