Preparing Children for Every Season
Courtesy of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division
of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection
at the New York Public Library
The Christmas season has begun, and I am thankful. I love this time of year. Like Thanksgiving, the Christmas season is a time of preparation. For homeschooling mamas, it is an additional time of preparation because you live in a preparation season all through the year. While you love and care for your children each day, you are also preparing them for a godly and purposeful future.
I recently found a set of prints by Currier and Ives in the collection of the Library of Congress. Currier and Ives titled them:
The Four Seasons of Life: Childhood
The Season of Joy
The Four Seasons of Life: Youth
The Season of Love
The Four Seasons of Life: Middle Age
The Season of Strength
The Four Seasons of Life: Old Age
The Season of Rest
Psalm 1 tells us that the person whose delight is in the law of the Lord “will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season . . . . ” Seeing these prints reminded me of a beautiful song our son John wrote in his early 20s, a song about the seasons of our lives. You can read the words and listen to John perform the song here. I encourage you to take the two minutes and 41 seconds to listen.
The goal of our time with our children is to prepare them to yield the fruit God wants them to yield in every season of their lives.
How blessed is the man who does not walk
in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners,
Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,
Which yields its fruit in its season
And its leaf does not wither;
And in whatever he does, he prospers.
Psalm 1:1-3