Savor the Seasons

Rick Boyer

The Home School Digest, Fall 1994

If anybody ever invents a time machine, I want the first one off the assembly line. I’ll have a thousand things I want to do. I’ll explore history and find out what really happened on a number of occasions. I’ll return to my childhood and try to make peace with some of the painful things that happened to me and revisit the happy times at Grandad’s farm with my cousins. But the very first thing I’d do, is go back to when my children were little.

                Oh, what I’d give to see my big boys small again. I used to get bored sometimes with pulling them in the wagon or pushing them on the swings, but I’d give a lot to be able to do it again. I don’t think I’d ever tire of it. To carry them on my shoulders again; to tickle them ‘til they screamed. To have nobody around who knew that Dad wasn’t perfect, that is, except Mom. To be able to hug and kiss my boys without embarrassing them.

Back in my beloved house painting days, I was working on a big house for an elderly lady who was a true gentlewoman. It was the summer of 1979 and it was hot. Marilyn had dropped by on her way home from her prenatal visit to the doctor. I climbed down off my ladder to hear the news. Marilyn was due to deliver soon and I wondered what the doctor had said.

“He said I’d better hurry up and get home,” she told me. “Said it could come any time.”

We were planning our second home birth. Marilyn had been treated so callously at Virginia Baptist Hospital when Tim was born that I vowed I’d never take her there to give birth again. So we had had Nathan at home, much to the shock of our neighbor, Sandy, across the street. I wish I’d had my camera ready. I’d gotten several pictures of Nate very early in his life but I’d sure have saved film for a shot of Sandy’s face when Marilyn first threw the covers back if I’d known what her reaction was going to be like.

When Marilyn drove away, she agreed to call me immediately if she had any strange sensations before my regular time to arrive home. I saw Mrs. Holt, my customer, a few minutes later. When I told her it looked like a new one would be along soon, she smiled.

“You’re a rich man, Mr. Boyer,” she said warmly.

And I was. And I am. But it’s striking how often I forget and have to be reminded that I really am wealthy. Sometimes, I feel sort of poor. I’ve long suspected that whoever said that the best things in life are free never paid an obstetrician’s bill.

Looking back on our marriage, we see so many times when we wanted to know why the pressure was on us and whether it would ever end. It would be very gratifying to think that those trials were partly for the purpose of preparing us to share hope with those who come behind us.

As I write this, I have a couple of couples in mind. I know one young family with two children who are having second thoughts about letting God plan their family because of the stress they’re undergoing with the little ones they have now. Another young couple we know have one baby and feel that their hands (and possibly their quiver) might be just about full with the demands of parenting and paying the bills without a well-established income. Both these couples talk to us about their pressures almost apologetically as if they feel that we’re going to look down disdainful noses at them.

But that’s very far from the case. If they only knew how we’d like to be with them in the middle of some sleepless night, to give them a hug and tell them about the times we’ve walked the floor with sick or restless little people. And to assure them that this won’t last forever.

We see the past through rose-colored glasses to some extent, but still we have a pretty good memory of how it was. The future we see as through a glass darkly, but we have our experience to give us some idea what it will probably be like. It’s usually the present, or at least some features of it, that’s hardest to focus and examine.

When I was a boy, my cousins, brothers and myself used to swim in Grandad’s muddy pond in the back pasture. There were cows in that pasture and the pond was their watering hole. It sickens me to think of swimming in that water now, but you know how boys are. We loved it and that smelly mud just served as something to soften the pond bottom and as ammunition to throw at each other.

But one thing we couldn’t do in that muddy water was see anything. Once I was swimming under the water trying to sneak up on somebody when my hand struck another hand in the mud of the bottom. Aha. Somebody was trying to sneak up on me at the same time. I grabbed the hand and gave a jerk, hoping to startle whoever was on the other end of it, maybe even assist him in swallowing a little water. But the hand wasn’t attached to anything.

I panicked. I managed to get my feet under me and scramble to a standing position in the waist-deep water. I had just enough breath left in me to give a terrified shriek as I threw the hand halfway across the pond. It was a frog.

The boys all laughed at me just as you’re laughing at me now, shame on you! But you would have thought it was a severed hand, too, if you’d seen as many scary movies as I had.

Visibility in the agitated water of a farm pond is not good. So it is with some of the stressful situations of family life. When you’re outside the pond, you can tell a lot about it and you can see plainly that it’s not all that far across. But when you’re the one swimming underwater in the middle of it all you know is that you’re getting very short of breath.

One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. It’s a good reminder that good times and bad times come and go and that we need to be prepared to experience some of each. In honor of those in the trenches of parenthood and especially those younger than my wife and myself, I’d like to offer the following thoughts on this passage as it might apply in to parents.

Ecclesiastes 3, verse 1: To every thing there is a season, and time to every purpose under the heaven. God connects times with purposes. He doesn’t promise to tell us what the purpose is while we’re in the time, and He may not tell us before we enter Heaven. But remember in the tough seasons, and the peaceful times as well, that God has His purposes. Especially in the season of pressure, use minimal energy trying to discern God’s reasons. (He may not want you to know them yet.) Learn to rest in the fact that your Father never wastes suffering.

Verse 2a: A time to be born, and a time to die. You were a newborn yourself and it wasn’t so long ago. The time will come when you will be called away from this planet. Between those two times, there are many seasons. The one you’re in will end and another will begin. Remember that life has a beginning and an end and let that humble and motivate you. Your children are your bequest to a needy world you’ll be leaving.

                Verse 2b: A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. There are times to sow good seed in the hearts of your children. The time you spend reading his or her favorite Bible story for the umpteenth time isn’t wasted. There is also a time for pulling weeds. Be alert to pluck up unworthy attitudes or false philosophies the enemy tries to sow in your wheat.

Verse 3a: A time to kill, and a time to heal. My first dog had to be put to sleep because he was very sick. I was only a small boy and in bed with measles when my father gave Sport the pills hidden in some meat. His end was peaceful which made it a little easier for me. It must have been hard on my dad, knowing how attached I was to my little dog. But he had to make the call. He was Dad. There were times when pets were nursed back to health, too. And the day when Dad carried me into the emergency room with burns from firecracker powder on my face. Parents need help with healing, too.

Verse 3b: A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. There was a time to weep when my Grandad died and I couldn’t afford to go home to be with the family. At other times, I’ve cried when I felt I had failed as a parent. There’s been a lot of laughter, too, at the goofiness of a teenage clown or the antics of a toddler.

There’s a time to grieve over the loss of a little one who died before birth or soon thereafter. There is also a time to rejoice in a healthy birth or celebrate the acquisition of a fine son- or daughter-in-law.

Verse 5a: A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together. At times, I’ve thrown rocks out of the yard into the garden so I could run the lawn mower and then thrown what I was sure were identical rocks out of the garden into the yard so I could run the tiller. Occasionally, some rocks have been gathered up with other junk and hauled to the dump. I’ve sometimes been guilty of casting away stones when I would have been wiser to gather them. The little foibles of maintaining a home are part of the season.

Verse 5b: a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. Guiding your child in relationships with others is an important job that spans many seasons. Many temptations come through companionship and decisions as to whom to embrace and whom to avoid are critical. The day comes, in fact, when a choice of a life partner has to be made and committed to. It’s a season for parents to stand firm and families to stand together in supporting the new couple for life.

Verse 6a: A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. We have some gains, we have some losses. Some things are worth the time and effort to acquire and own, other things only distract from our purposes with their demand for maintenance and protection. Blessed is the parent whose life is uncluttered with excess possessions so he has time to enjoy his family undistracted.

Verse 7a: A time to rend, and a time to sew. There is a time to repair a damaged garment and a time to throw one away and go shopping for a replacement. Some clothes, like some associations, aren’t worth repairing because they never really fit properly anyway.

Verse 7b: A time to keep silence, and a time to speak. From time to time, a parent has to bite his tongue and let a little person learn from his own mistakes. On the other hand, there are those times when a warning or instruction or rebuke is just what the doctor ordered. Blessed is that parent who has the discernment to know the difference.

Verse 8a: A time to love, and a time to hate. Parents know what it is to love, to have one’s heartstrings so entwined with the woven strands of a loved one’s life experiences that the other’s joy and pain are his own as well. Because they know the holding power of love, they yearn to teach their children to love that which is of God in the world and hate that which is wrong or unworthy.

Verse 8b: A time of war, a time of peace. So much of our life is a battle. But the war is won and some day the last skirmishes will end, and peace will settle over the landscape. We have battles, especially spiritual battles, for our children and grandchildren. But the lulls between fights are the seasons of peace we need to rebuild our strength. As we look forward to the lasting peace at the end of the campaign, let’s remember that the exertions of the battle will be rewarded.

Consider the next few lines from Ecclesiastes 3:9-11a: “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth? I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in his time…”

And parenthood, though labor, is beautiful.

In the early days of our parenthood, it sometimes seemed that life would go on forever as it was going then. We’d never have any money, we’d never have a child old enough to babysit, we’d never have air conditioning. I was so tense as a young man that I made life harder for myself and those around me.

I’ve heard Marilyn say that when she had three children, life was tougher than it was with eight because when she had only three, there were no big helpers. Two were in diapers, and Rickey was a bundle of energy. Now, of course, we have some good help trained and that is a blessing, but the extra needs of the family are felt, too. It takes a tremendous expenditure of time, finances and effort to do what we do.

But by now we know that it won’t always be this way. There may be tougher times with a sick child or persecution such as when we were in court over home education. And there will almost certainly be easier times, too, when more of ours children are mature teens and ready to carry their own weight and somebody else’s, too. All we know for sure is that everything that comes to pass, passes.

One of the blessings of our hard seasons is the powerful motivation they have been to train our children in wisdom. Not infrequently, I find myself telling one or more of my children, “Now don’t be like me when I _____” and fill in the blank. There are those who say that children have to make all their own mistakes. I say baloney. We all agree that it’s not a good idea to stand in the path of a speeding truck and we didn’t learn it by experience. Some things have to be learned by one’s own mistakes but a lot of things can be learned from the experiences of others. I want my children to learn from my mistakes and not have to make their own. I have enough mistakes in my repertoire to go around.

Some of the things I’ve learned, through bitter experience, which I want to pass on to my children are:

Stay in the Word. Work hard even when you’re discouraged. It helps. Consider self-employment. There’s flexibility when it’s done right. Develop a personal and family ministry. If others aren’t ministering, don’t complain; minister instead. Keep a screwdriver handy. There are loose doorknobs everywhere.

One day in the fall when Rick and Tim were little guys around kindergarten age, we went to the woods to give our dogs a run. I kept the dogs in the car at first and sent the boys running off through the trees to hide so the dogs could hunt them down. I watched them trot eagerly away in their jackets and sneakers while a shower of yellow and orange leaves cascaded down through the clear autumn air. The thought struck me that this was a good day in my life and that I should enjoy it. Those were my precious little sons galloping away through the leaves and they were happy and healthy. They had a wonderful mother and two baby brothers and dogs to play with in the woods. It was a good day in their lives as well as mine.

It’s a shame that it seems so easy to get distracted, by a little difficulty, from great blessings. The season in which we find ourselves is never all good or all bad, but it is temporary and we should savor it while it’s here. I was reminiscing a while back with a man I see only once or twice a year. His son was my best friend in junior high and high school and they put up with seeing a lot of me then. As I reminded him of some of the things we used to do together, he said, “Yes, those were good years.”

They hadn’t seemed so good to me because it was during those years that my family was going through some hard times and I was struggling to live with myself while growing up. But talking to him reminded me that there had been some wonderful times and dear friends. I’m glad those years look good to him in memory because he made them better for me.

One day in May, Marilyn was sitting out in a lawn chair during a rare moment of leisure and watching the children play in the yard. She said the strongest feeling came over her that God was saying to her, “Enjoy this day. This is a precious time with your children. Treasure this day in your heart.”

That’s something I’ve had a hard time learning and it’s earned me a few wifely scoldings. I don’t know why contentment has been such a hard lesson to learn but it must be one of my besetting sins. I’d never make a guru because I can’t sit still. But I’m getting better.

Fortunately, there is enough nostalgia in my makeup to compensate for mental hyperactivity. I love to sit and look at our photos. The children love it, too, and we have some pretty tattered photo albums. There ought to be a custom that every couple receives a VCR for a wedding present. All we had to start with was a cheap instamatic but I’m glad we had it. Still, I do wish we’d had a VCR or movie camera to watch baby’s first steps and early attempts at swimming. And about a million other things. Besides my own memories, I think there’s a lot of value in building memories for the children to take with them into adulthood and families of their own.

The burdens of young parents are keenly felt, and it’s often hard to drop everything, in the middle of a chore, and run for a camera. But it’s very rewarding if you can just get used to the idea that the housework will keep while you snap a picture or two. I would never encourage you to be a sloppy housekeeper, but there are priorities. If you’re not enjoying your children, you’re too busy. Children grow up overnight whether you want them to or not, and you can’t afford to miss little happenings that will one day be your memories.

If you’re like me, you can think of a million things you’d like to have time to do. Worthwhile things, too. I’d like to learn to play a musical instrument, be more involved in politics, be more active in my church and read a lot of good books. Some of which have been on my shelf for years. Many times, I’ve thought how I could improve myself if I only had time. But God reminds me that He is improving me through the very common responsibilities that I think are keeping me from my chosen pursuits.

God knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows what challenges, responsibilities and opportunities bring into our lives as He builds a life curriculum for each of us. It is when we kick against the pricks and are constantly looking for something else more fulfilling that we miss fulfillment. In my single days, I never would have suspected that rinsing dirty diapers in the toilet was the least bit enlightening or noble. Yet now, when I hear someone preach on faith or endurance and I suspect he’s never been on his knees before the porcelain throne, I can’t help wondering whether he really has authority to speak.

I hear a story about an elderly preacher and his wife who went to hear a promising young preacher speak to a large and responsive crowd. As they walked home afterward, the lady said, “My, wasn’t that young man a great preacher!”

To which her husband replied, “Yes, after he has suffered for awhile, he will be a great preacher.”

I guess most of us don’t think of having a baby barf down one’s shoulder as suffering for the Lord, but in the final analysis, what else could you call it?

I used to think that I was wasting my potential by not being in a full-time ministerial position. These days, I’m coming to see that there’s no more important ministry that the stewardship of little lives. We moms and dads hold the keys to future generations. We mustn’t get bogged down in the daily grind and forget to smell the roses, on one hand, and revel in the prospect of future achievement on the other.

This business of being in the ministry seems to apply to women as well as men. I’ve known guys who put their families through torture trying to finish college and get that paper in their hand. But for every one of them, I suspect I’ve known at least one woman who was itching for more of a ministry as well. We have lady friends who seem always on the lookout for a friend or neighbor who is an emotional basketcase so they can minister. We know other women who desire to “leave their mark on the world.” Do you think Susannah Wesley left her mark on the world?

It’s interesting to think that the moms who are looking for a ministry outside their families often pick people who never seem to make spiritual progress. Maybe they lack the spiritual discernment to refrain from casting pearls before swine or maybe they naturally gravitate to people who have promise of being a long-term market for their own misplaced mother instincts. It’s also worth remarking that I’ve observed other women diligently but fruitlessly ministering to other women when their own husbands and children have unmet needs. Where is their authority to speak?

The principle in Scripture is for older women to teach younger women to love their husbands, love their children, be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind and subject to their own husbands (see Titus 2 NASV). Now, I would think that the first requirement to teach pottery would be the ability to make a pot. I would also think it logical that the first requirement to teach all these womanly skills to others would be the demonstration of them in one’s own family.

God seems to be serious about the principle of seasons. Note that He wants older women teaching younger women. He also gives a list of curriculum components. It seems that younger women should concentrate on learning to do their job in their own family before aspiring to teach others. It’s more glamorous teaching a ladies’ Bible study than dipping diapers, but evidently they both have their season.

There will be different seasons in the lives of our children, we’ve found. There was a time when we were living in our little yellow house in Concord and had two, then three then four little boys. I was young and eager, wanting to get into full-time ministry work and leaving no stone unturned looking for God’s big opportunity for me. I was eager to get into the Lord’s work and out of painting. My wife stuck close to her home and children while my eyes were on the ends of the earth. In the long run, it was not my eagerness, but my children, that gave me an opportunity to speak.

Marilyn was so faithful in training her children. She had those little guys memorizing Scripture and character qualities and learning responsibility of the family. We dreamed of the day they would take their places in the adult world and we could enjoy the fruits of our labors in their success. It seemed along time that they were just little children whom people thought very bright, but who were too young to really accomplish anything.

Then one day, we woke up and our little boys were doing adult things. We had sons ushering in church, playing the piano, singing in the choir, remodeling the nursery. They were going to political conventions and working the polls. They were helping me make a living for their siblings and building a reputation in the community for responsibility and diligence. Gone was our secluded life at Concord which could have been even more happy and peaceful if only I had known how to wait on God and savor the season.

It was no coincidence that as my children grew so did our outreach. The larger our family became and the more our children began to do, the more people were interested in what Marilyn and I were learning. I had thought as a young man that I had so much to say and that the world was suffering because there was no platform from which I could say it. Frankly, that embarrasses me now because I’m finding that there is more I don’t know with every year that passes. And as I grow dumber, my children advance in their roles in the world outside the walls of our home and we, their parents, get more and more respect.

It’s a mistake to try to make our children grow up too fast. I always looked forward to the days when our children would be teenagers and now I wonder how I could have forgotten so quickly what it was like to be a teenager. I should have spent those early seasons enjoying my children as little ones and making the most of each day with them. Some people fear making their children too dependent on Mommy and Daddy. That’s like being afraid of gravity. Gravity has some disadvantages, but nothing to compare to being flung into outer space if gravity suddenly ceased to exist. I hope my children always feel the tug of home. I see the results of the opposite condition all through our society and wonder if all those working mothers and career-oriented, status-conscious dads really think it’s worth it to miss out on the springtime of their children’s lives.

If Marilyn and I could offer suggestions to younger parents, we’d tell them to look at the bright side of each season of life rather than longing for a season that is not yet due or is gone and can’t return. We lived through a time when we had no big boys to babysit while we went out together and that seemed a disadvantage. Now we know that it was much easier having a quiet household then, than it is now. We could get everybody in bed at the same time at night and Marilyn could even get some quiet time during afternoon naps. We have our babysitters now and brother, do we need them! Gone are the long, quiet evenings at home with lots of time to talk. Now we have to go out to dinner to discuss anything at length. It’s not that our children are terribly unruly, but fourteen people in the same house can be a distraction.

                It may be that our twilight years will be our best. Then we’ll have our children raised and the financial burden eased so that we can rest and play more. I never want to retire, but I’d like to have more choice in how I spend my time. I want to bask in the glow of sons and daughters who are honoring God and enjoy getting acquainted with my new children by marriage. I want to see the family network expand and influence the world around us for the Lord. I’d like to write a book now and then and occasionally have opportunity to speak to parent groups, encouraging them to make the most of the seasons of their children’s lives.

One thing I don’t want in my later years is to regret my earlier life. I don’t want to look back on the times when there were little ones constantly wanting to be read to or played with in the sandbox and think that I never quite had enough time for those things. By then, I’ll know so very well that children don’t continue to want those things forever. I hope I’ll look back and remember thankfully that I subordinated my own interests and made the effort to invest in theirs.

Today, life is demanding. We have infants to care for at the same time we have young men needing our help in making the transition into the adult world. We face constantly changing needs, clothing is continually being outgrown and it seems there is no end to the errands needing to be run. But it wasn’t always this way and it won’t always be this way.

When the next season comes, I hope I look back on this one and recall that I wrung the good out of every day and took the lumps with some degree of patience. I hope that my children will remember happily how I dealt with them and ant to deal with their children the same way. Lord, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

Excerpted from Yes, They’re All Ours available… from The Learning Parent, 2430 Sunnymeade Road, Rustburg VA 24588. All rights reserved.