Last week, we talked about why the goal is not squeezing more into our days, but learning to receive more life from them. You can catch up here: Stop Trying to Squeeze More Into Your Days. As I continued reflecting on that, another question surfaced.
If I’m learning to receive more life from my days, how do I know what God is growing in this season?
That’s when He drew my attention back to something He’s been teaching us since creation. When you look at nature, you begin to realize God designed every kind of fruit with its own season. And nothing in creation seems to be anxious about becoming what it’s not yet. It simply grows through the process God designed. Hidden beneath the soil. Watered. Pruned. Weathering storms. Stretching toward the light. Branch by branch, leaf by leaf, until eventually… fruit.
I imagine farmers aren’t walking through their orchards in the winter frustrated that the peaches aren’t ripe yet. They don’t expect apples, cherries, pears, and peaches to all ripen on the same tree at the same time.
Instinctively, we know this. Anyone who’s bitten into a rock-hard winter nectarine knows that fruit picked out of season might look promising, but it rarely tastes the way it was intended.
Yet how often do we do this in our own lives?
We expect to be raising young children while launching a business and have it all be easy.
We want the energy we had at 20, with the wisdom we have at 50, while also having the margin we’ll have once the kids move out, along with the opportunities that belong 5 or 10 years from now. Hallelujah, and can I get an amen?! In other words, we want every fruit, all at once. Or at least, I know I have.
By experience, I’ve learned that fruit is at its best and sweetest when eaten in its proper season. Perhaps that’s because the One who created time and seasons also knows what each season is meant to produce. Sometimes, our role is simply to remain planted and trust the Master Gardener at work.
Motherhood alone has carried many seasons.
There were years with one child in school while one little one toddled about and another was a babe in arms. (I share more about everything I was trying to add during that season in my book, Reclaim Time.) Then the season changed. The children grew. We spent time in public school before transitioning the two youngest to homeschooling. And now, two have since graduated while one is beginning her high school years.
Along the way, there has been volunteering, serving, working from home, and now building a business.
Looking back, I realize I wasn’t just comparing myself to other women. More often, I was comparing myself to younger versions of me. I was trying to harvest fruit that belonged in another season. It was hard, like that winter nectarine from earlier. All the while, I was being invited to taste the sweetness of the fruit God had placed in the season I was living. Comparison only made that day’s fruit seem less sweet.
So let me leave you with a question.
What fruit has God placed in your hands during this season that you’ve been too busy comparing to someone else’s… or even your own from another season?
Maybe today isn’t about chasing next season’s harvest. Maybe it’s about receiving today’s. Because the sweetest fruit is rarely the kind that we force. It’s the fruit we faithfully receive when it’s in season.