Shuck: Your summer is coming

Of course, summer is coming. Your summer is coming. There are many different views as to whether summer is a time of joy or is it a sweltering balloon of heat trying to burst and spread its humidity and discomfort throughout the world? I reside within the Southeast Missouri area and there are different opinions of what summer means to each person. Neverthealess, I believe most look upon summer as a time of beauty, seeing the results of spring’s new birth, and relaxation.

Our thoughts turn toward shedding our skin of thick, warm winter clothes. We look forward to walking in the sunshine, listening to the birds sing and feeling the fresh air as it brushes against our cheeks. Our hair swishes in the wind as it blows in dissarray. We eat lighter foods as the heat seems to take away our appetite for heavier food that we craved during the colder winter months. We draw a breath and exhale the trapped air as a sign of relief. We fling our arms into the air and thank Almighty God for the chance to experience the awe of summer, again.

We can talk about summer in a spiritual sense as well as an earthly one. What is your summer going to be like in your mind? Have you pondered it yet? Are you still looking for and yearning for your summer to appear? I think that many of us are familiar with the feelings that our summer has yet to come. We believe that only bad happenings, stress and disappointments have been our legacy thus far. We have felt only the sting of failure, heartbreak and loss. “When will my summer ever come, “we say?

A friend is going through a hard time presently. It seems that the harder he tries, the worse his life becomes. Max and his girlfriend were involved in a car accident recently, through no fault of their own. Consequently, Max was forced to take a leave of absence from his new job to satisfy the demands of his doctors—a requirement of his attorneys. Now, Max is stressed to the limit as he struggles to live without a paycheck. He struggles and hangs in there. “When is my summer coming,” he too, asks himself. Perhaps you’ve wondered when your winter will pass, Will your child recover from her bout with cancer, What’s going to happen as a result of our having lost our job, as breadwinner of the family? Perhaps our house is needing some necessary repairs, of which we’re unprepared. As we travel through life we think of it as a constant challenge.

"Mom," one of my adult sons said, “We will always be working.” I was rather stunned at the statement as we talked about the busyness of his life. I commented that, “before long, you will be able to retire.” I knew that his summer would eventually come and he and his wife could, perhaps, travel some, and do other things of which they had dreamed. As I thought of his statement, I sort-of agreed. We truly are always working at something. Even when we stop performing our paid day-job, life still fills its corners with challenges. Every stage in our lives brings new responsibilities and opportunities. English teacher, writer, actor, David Wallis, offers his view of the four seasons of life: “Spring is adolescence, one is a child and can’t wait to see what’s new; summer is usually when one is finished dating, ready to settle down and, establish himself/herself and ; summer is usually the longest season; fall indicates a slightly downward slide into retirement, and perhaps grandchildren, but life isn’t over; winter is the time when we began to feel the weight of the centuries upon our shoulders and death is the last door to close.”

Regardless of how pressured we feel or how closely behind us that misfortune follows, our summer is coming. We will eventually reap the sunshine, good fortune and, success if we refuse to let our hindrances and losses get the best of us. Everything has a beginning and an end. Even dark times pass so do not grieve because your summer is, indeed coming.