Living Seasonally in a World That Wants Everything Right Now

This week, I found myself sitting there looking through pictures of my youngest and comparing them to pictures of my oldest at the same age. Honestly, my heart had a little sting of pain because the years just seem to fly by.

You hear people say it all the time when your babies are little: “Don't blink,” or, “The days are long, but the years are short.” Sometimes, especially in the middle of those really long days, those words don't feel very helpful. Because this week, we had one of those days. Potty training, attitudes, kids fighting, repeating myself over and over, and all the normal chaos of raising little people who are learning how to navigate their emotions, independence, and each other. More than once, I caught myself thinking, When is this season going to end?

Then I looked at those pictures. Suddenly, I found myself wanting to soak in even the frustrating moments because I realized something I already knew but sometimes forget: I can't go backwards.

We Spend So Much Time Waiting for the Next Season

How often do we find ourselves thinking about what life will be like when we finally get through whatever we're currently facing? When they're finally potty trained, when they sleep through the night, when work settles down, when we lose the weight, when the finances improve, when the business grows, or simply when life gets easier.

There's nothing wrong with looking forward to change. Some parts of life are genuinely hard, and we can be more than ready for them to pass. But motherhood made something clear to me this week: I can be exhausted by where I am and still recognize that there is something precious here.

There were moments I desperately wanted to move past, yet hours later I was looking at old pictures wishing time would slow down. Maybe the goal isn't to love every moment. Maybe it's to stop wishing away the life that's happening in front of us.

The World Has Taught Us to Expect Everything Right Now

We live in a world built around speed. We can order something today and have it sitting on our doorstep tomorrow. We can search a question and have an answer in seconds. We open social media and see someone's transformation, success, beautiful home, thriving business, or seemingly perfect family condensed into a thirty-second video.

Without even realizing it, we start expecting our own lives to move at that same pace. We want the result without the waiting. We want to plant the seed and see fruit tomorrow, but that's not how growth works.

Living on a farm gives me a front-row seat to that lesson. You plant, tend, water, and wait. There is no amount of impatience that will make a seed grow faster. You can't stand over a field and demand that harvest come tomorrow because you're tired of waiting. There is a process between planting and harvest, and our lives aren't so different.

Not Every Season Is Meant to Feel Good

When we talk about embracing where we are, it can sound like we're supposed to enjoy every second of it. I don't believe that's realistic. I'm probably not going to look back and wish I could potty train another toddler. I'm not going to miss every argument between my kids or every meltdown, and I'm certainly not going to pretend that hard days weren't actually hard.

We can be grateful and exhausted at the same time. We can love our children deeply and still need a break. We can trust God and still struggle with waiting. We can believe He has purpose in what we're walking through while still praying for change.

Being present doesn't require pretending everything is beautiful. Sometimes it simply means acknowledging, This is hard, but I don't want to miss what matters here.

Some Growth Happens Where We Can't See It

Think about a seed beneath the soil. If you judged its progress only by what you could see above ground, you might assume nothing was happening. But underneath the surface, roots are forming long before there is visible evidence of growth.

I think God works in our lives like that sometimes. We pray, show up, keep trying, obey, and wonder if we're making any progress at all. We question why the prayer hasn't been answered, why the opportunity hasn't come, or why we don't feel further along.

But perhaps the work happening right now isn't supposed to be visible yet. God may be building our patience, strengthening our faith, teaching us discipline, changing our priorities, or preparing us for something we aren't ready to carry. Just because you can't see the growth doesn't mean nothing is growing.

Stop Measuring Your Season Against Someone Else's

It's even harder to appreciate where we are when we have constant access to everyone else's lives. We see someone else's business growing while ours is barely getting started. Someone else reaches the health goal we're still working toward. Someone else's children are in a different stage. Someone else seems to be living in the answered prayer we're still waiting for.

Suddenly, instead of tending to what God has placed in front of us, we're wondering why we're behind. Someone else's progress doesn't determine ours. Their timeline was never supposed to be ours. God isn't asking us to keep pace with everyone around us. He's asking us to be faithful with what He's placed in front of us.

There is freedom in putting our attention back on our own field and faithfully tending to what we've been given.

There Is Purpose in Right Now

Looking at those pictures of my girls reminded me how quickly life changes. The little girl who once needed me for everything doesn't need me in quite the same ways anymore, and one day, my youngest won't either.

The toys scattered across the floor will disappear. The constant questions will quiet down. The little voices yelling “Mom!” from another room won't fill our house in the same way. There will be beautiful things about what comes next, too, but I don't want anticipation for tomorrow to rob me of today.

I don't want to do that with the other areas of my life either. I don't want to be so focused on where Rural Rooted Mama could someday go that I miss what God is teaching me while I'm building it. I don't want to become so consumed with reaching a health goal that I fail to appreciate what my body is capable of today.

There will always be another goal or milestone. If we're not careful, “I'll be happy when…” can become the way we live instead of something we occasionally say.

Maybe Slow Isn't a Bad Thing

There is a rhythm built into creation: planting, growing, harvesting, resting, and beginning again. Nature doesn't apologize for moving at the pace it was designed to move. The ground isn't useless when it's resting, and a seed isn't failing because it hasn't become a plant yet.

We could offer ourselves a little of that same grace. We don't have to become everything we're going to be right now. Sometimes our responsibility is simply to faithfully tend to what God has placed in our hands today and trust Him with what comes next.

Don't Rush the Roots Because You're Ready for the Fruit

I know there will still be days when I'm counting down until bedtime. There will be moments when the fighting drives me crazy, the attitudes wear me down, and I desperately want whatever difficult phase we're in to pass. I'm human. I also want to remember those pictures. The moments that feel ordinary, messy, and exhausting today may become memories I treasure later.

That's the lesson I want to carry beyond motherhood, too. Waiting doesn't automatically mean we're stuck. Progress doesn't have to be immediate to be meaningful. We don't need to measure our lives by how quickly we reach the next milestone. Maybe you're planting. Maybe you're growing. Maybe you're waiting, harvesting, or resting. Whatever it looks like, be faithful with what's in front of you.

Slow doesn't mean you're behind. Sometimes slow is exactly how roots grow deep enough to hold everything that's coming next.

So today, I'm reminding myself, and maybe you need the reminder too: Don't rush the roots just because you're ready for the fruit.

Stay rooted,

TylerAnn

Rural Rooted Mama