By Jessica Brodie
And just like that, there were two.
This weekend, two of our four kids headed off to college—one for her freshman year, and one for his sophomore year. The freshman won’t be far. Even though she’s living in a dorm, she chose a school in the same town as us, so we’ll see her a lot. But the sophomore… I might not see him for a month, maybe longer. Not just that, but now he’s in an off-campus apartment and not a dorm, which means he might not come back for the summer given his yearlong lease.
The tears definitely poured this weekend.
Tonight, the remaining two kids had dinner with me and my husband, and we marveled at how different it felt. Still good, still family, still fun… just, well. Different.
It’s funny how those different seasons come, isn’t it? It hit me as I lay in bed, head buried in melancholy even as I reminded myself how normal and natural this was, how life’s changes shift without warning at times. You’re a kid, and you finally get used to being a kid, then bam—you’re a teen! Then you’re a teen, all hormonal mood-swings and angst, and you finally get used to being a teen, then bam—you’re a full-fledged grownup with a job and bills! Then you’re an adult, all in the groove of your career and married, and you finally get used to being an adult, then bam—you’re a parent! Then you’re a parent, and you’re drowning in diapers and baby food and snack packs and juice boxes, then they’re in elementary school, and then middle school and high school, and you finally know what you’re doing and finally used to being a parent, then bam—they’re off, flown the nest and ready to be adults themselves!
It's like the moment you get used to things, the moment you settle into your groove, life changes on you and everything goes upside down again.
I guess that’s why Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 resonates so strongly with many of us:
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
You get used to the laughing, and then there’s weeping! You get used to the silence, then there’s sound!
It can be dizzying if it catches you unprepared… and often it does. We don’t know when peace will turn to war or tearing down will turn to building. Sometimes the shift is so subtle we don’t even notice at first… or so sudden it hits like a bolt of lightning.
It’s what comes after these verses that I find my mind meditating on today. Ecclesiastes 3:14 sums it all up, “I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.”
That’s the ultimate truth, isn’t it? God is the one constant in life. Everything in life—everything!—eventually changes. Everything eventually ends. People are born, then they live and finally die. Seasons shift from spring to summer to autumn to winter, over and over. The earth spins and the tides wash in and then out again, and only God remains. Only God.
It reminds me a bit of that hymn, “My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less,” by Edward Mote, which declares:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.
Changes come—I know this as surely as I know the sun will rise tomorrow. Nothing—nothing!—stays the same. As Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is a season for everything, and now is our family’s season of change.
But that’s okay, because I stand on the solid rock of God Almighty—Father, Son and Spirit—and that’s the only thing that really matters. Amen, and thanks be to God.
~
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