Autumn

I often hear the term "season" tossed about. When I declined a request to teach a class at church because homeschooling is a higher priority, I was told by an empty-nest mom, "You're in a different season now." At my age I'm in a child-rearing season. Amazing.

A Bobby Goldsboro song was popular when I was a teenager, "Autumn of My Life." It was a sad, man-loses-wife song that touched my romantic heart back then when I was in the spring of my life. He sang, "In the autumn of my years I noticed the tears and I knew that our life was in the past..." Maybe I'm in the autumn of my years now but seasons of life are circular, not linear. I've been through many seasons, alternating between children and career, turmoil and peace, tears and joy. The wisdom of Solomon tells us, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance..." Ecclesiastes 3.

I just finished reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. What a beautiful, thought-provoking book about nineteenth century women in China. I highly recommend it. You will never forget these characters and you will think hard about your role as daughter, mother, and friend to other women. A reviewer described the book as "heartbreakingly lovely" and that it is.

It was especially fascinating how the author described seasons of life in the book. First there are Daughter Days, the carefree days of childhood, until the terrible torture of footbinding ended a girl's innocence and confined her indoors, crippled forever. Chinese culture at the time demanded that women have impossibly tiny feet to attract a man and a good marriage. Then came Hair-Pinning Days when a teenage girl was prepared to be a wife, learning homemaking skills and obedience to a prescribed family ranking system. Next were Rice and Salt Days, the years of raising children and caring for the needs of a husband and mother-in-law. Last was Sitting Quietly, when a woman became a widow, "too old to cook or weave or embroider." She was referred to as "one who has not died."

In China in those days a woman had defining roles, roles that were as restrictive socially as they were physically by the footbinding. I was wondering how I might be limiting my daughters and binding them into my own expectations for them. How can I raise them to ignore our cultural demands to attain some physical perfection or professional attainment? (In doing this I have to examine my own attitudes and how I am enticed by the world.)

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Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32. I must not shackle Arielle and Liana with my own ideas and plans. Jesus also said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10. He's got big plans for these Chinese girls he brought into our family from so far away. They broke free from their own culture and must not be bound by ours. I pray I will never stand in the way of what God desires for their lives.

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This September the weather has been perfect--sunny and warm. The sadness of losing summer is erased as the beauty of the new season unfolds. The stifling humidity has retreated and we sleep tonight under a full moon and cool breezes. Autumn again. The same trees will release their brilliant leaves once again, and these two sisters, bigger now, will still delight in them. How blessed I am to have another season of Milk and Salt days!

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Fred ordered two cords of wood and the girls and I will soon be stacking it next to the dying tomato plants in the garden. Another summer gone, time for pumpkins and apples. We will hibernate in winter and long for spring once again.