moments in the seasons

It’s unseasonably cold here in New York…or maybe it’s just that last year was unseasonably warm and I prefer it’s temperatures to the ones I’m facing now.  Morning breaks just like every other morning–too early.  About a month ago I would have chided myself over not waking earlier, not taking time to be in the Word before my children woke up, but i’m learning that life is only the sum of its seasons and each season calls for something different.  Just as He brings the change from winter to spring He is the one who melts away the cold in our hearts to make way for new fruit to grow.  Seasons.

Like I said, morning dawned early.  Before you jump to a picturesque idea of morning at my house let me fill you in on the reality.  Approximately at five AM my youngest will roll over in her crib and become conscious enough to notice that her pacifier is no longer in her mouth, yet she won’t be conscious enough to figure where exactly in the three foot by four foot space known as her crib the pacifier has gone.  I’ll blunder out of bed as fast as I can to re-plug her before she wakes up the sleeping monster known as the three year old because if she wakes up, we all wake up.  I’ll spend the next hour failing miserably at going back to sleep/keeping my mind from wandering to all the things in life that I can’t control/trying to figure out a way to control all the things I can’t control.  I’ll fall back asleep about thirteen minutes before I should wake up.

Fast forward.

All four of the children are awake and in various states of chaos.  One’s getting out of the shower, the other is wandering around telling anyone who’ll listen that she’ll “help” them.  The other one is fully dressed, but forgot to change his underwear and the crew is rounded out by the token nudist streaking through the house decrying any kind of clothing.  It’s just the normal, everyday Thursday morning and somehow the normalcy of the insanity is pushing me to my limits.  I can feel the tension rising in my shoulders as the clock ticks every second closer to the deadline for school and there’s still so much on the list to finish and for heaven’s sake their is a naked child running around screeching.

“Mom, look at the beautiful sunrise!” she exclaims.  I look up quickly.  Acknowledge the glow peeking through the frosted glass.  We’re late.  The clock is ticking.

“Okay, let’s everyone…”

“…go downstairs.”

“…eat breakfast.”

“…keep moving.”

That sentence could end any and many ways.

“…go into Zahara’s room.  We’ll see it better in there.”  In we tromp–the naked one, the half dressed one, the soaking wet one wrapped in a towel and the other one and we gaze.

All in all, it took probably three minutes.  A whole 180 seconds of our day, but it made me pause and appreciate–appreciate these four little people in their various states and stages and this house that keeps us all.  We have our moments.  This 180 seconds was one of those moments and just as quickly it deteriorated into the morning rush, but all day long I’ve held onto that moment–four littles, all crowded around a window awed by a coral sun slowly rising through the dim morning skies.

Think through the past few days…what moments are you holding onto?  What moments help you make it through the long seasons?