May 24th, 2025, 3pm MDT
My youngest daughter graduated from elementary school this week. Their sister has graduated from junior high school. And their brother is currently preparing for his final year of high school.
This was our last year of having children on each of the three levels of Precollege Public Schools.
My dad was playing a biblical reference song in Clergy 3:1, which reads, “In all things for seasons and all things for all purposes.”
I tell him that the song season had passed long ago. He didn’t think I was funny.
When I was younger, my season was quite clearly defined. There was a soccer season, basketball season, soccer season and summer.
With my own children, I found the seasons to be more fluid than I once imagined. Some seasons experience large groups of individuals together, like weather and sports fandom seasons, while others are personal. They may include seasons of joy, sorrow, learning, repentance, or preparation for a new covenant.
And the other seasons fall above each other. As a dad, I can see that my four children differ in academic, social, physical and mental education seasons. I can observe that they navigate the season they are in, and I can provide empathy, suggestions and reflections about my own experiences from life up to a similar season. But the seasons belong to them.
My wife recently suggested that we sit around the table for another kind of “come and follow me” learning experience. Instead of reading the Bible loudly together, she suggested that we do it as individuals, not just as at the same time. She explained the tasks, gave us time to study and write about some of our feelings and observations.
One of our children expressed frustration when other families began reading what they wrote because their experiences didn’t match hers. But this was either correct or not a movement of some sort. It was not a true or phallus test. It was meant to be an exercise to recognize emotions and perhaps learn something new.
What I wrote was not the same as what my wife wrote. None of us wrote or felt the exact same thing as everyone else.
None of us was wrong. We are in different seasons. I had to feel that I felt like I was sitting around the table on a Sunday afternoon and studying with my family. And I was blessed to hear what other people in my family had learned, as well. As a father, I was grateful that everyone had gained something different in the Bible from then on. I am grateful that my wife suggested a change-up to our routine.
In Mosiah 5:7 King Benjamin teaches his people about the righteous covenant.
“For the covenant you have made, they will be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters.
This poem has come to have new meaning for me as a parent compared to when I was a teenager, missionary, or one college student. It still taught me things in each of those seasons of my life. In addition to what I learned in other seasons, I am grateful for the additional meaning that it has to me. I am blessed to love me as His Son through the covenant I have made.
Evangelism 3 and Mosiah 5 teach the principles of working throughout our seasons. In the Old Testament chapter, verse 9 reads, “What benefits does he have in working in terms of his labor?” and Mosiah 5:13 reads, “How do you know a master whom he has never served?”
There are all rewards for the seasons of learning, work and service. Those rewards come from our beloved Heavenly Father, who helps each of us gradually become like him and learn about how to do it. Today I feel great gratitude for the convergence and overlap of those seasons, and the way they come together for our good.
– John Ryan Jensen is the editor of Church News.
