Seasons to Share

We enjoy our new home, our puppies love it and we’re so thankful for it; but I miss the Zuck Homestead, I miss what it is like living in close proximity to friends.

One day this week, as the weather changed, I found myself wanting to walk a few hundred feet from our home to David and Sally’s and have a conversation about the unusually wet summer we’ve had and that fall will soon be upon us. Of course I couldn’t do that because we now live about five miles from the Homestead and I wouldn’t have made it back for dinner. It got me to thinking about sharing the seasons of life with others, about life’s rhythms and about the joy and pleasure of having others accompany us on the journey.

A while back I think I wrote about my surprise at living on the Homestead, I am a pretty private person and like my space and tranquility and I never thought I’d tolerate living in close proximity to others…let alone treasure the experience – but I was wrong. There was something about friends driving up and down the lane on the Homestead, about seeing friends taking walks or cutting the grass or Seth and Silas jumping on the trampoline. How many days was I sweating in the garden with dirt and bug bites all over me, no doubt reeking like someone who had fallen into an outhouse, when I’d spy Davey working in his garden and go over and chat about gardening and families and Jesus; there was many a prayer we had together out in the garden, not only did our prayers ascend to heaven but no doubt our nasty stink did too. That must have been confusing to the angels, the prayers of the saints are supposed to be fragrant, I’m not sure ours fit that category.

Seasons change, and not only do they change but when they change they are not always the same as they once were; winters change, falls change, springs change; this summer is proof that summers change. Oh the rain we’ve had. Most summers in Virginia we water our garden multiple times a week, this summer we’ve watered less than five times – this summer just ain’t like any other summer I recall, nor is it like any summer Davey recalls. How do I know that? I know it because a few days ago I stopped by the Homestead and saw Davey and we talked about families and Jesus and…yes…the weather.