A man sent his four sons into a field to look at a lone pear tree. He sent the first one out in the winter; the second one during the spring; the third one in the summer; and the last one in the autumn to contemplate the pear tree.
They all sat at the table with their father and talked about what each son had seen during his season.
The first son remarked how sad, ugly, barren, and frozen the tree looked in winter. The second one stated the tree that he saw was full of fresh green buds and blossoms in the spring. That summer the third son was excited that the tree he stood beside was a tree full flowering beauty that smelled sweet with hope. The fourth son handed each of them a beautiful ripe pear and said, “It was a glorious tree full of harvest and heavy with fruit in the autumn.”
The father told his sons that all of them were right and that each of them had only seen one season of the tree. He then told his sons, “You cannot judge a person by only one season of his life, because you cannot measure the essence of one’s life until the end of all his seasons.
If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of the spring, the beauty of the summer, and the fulfillment of your autumn.
If you feel like you’re in the winter of your life and everything around you looks dead and barren, don’t be discouraged–wait for your autumn. As seasons of our lives come and change, we must learn to be patient and not forget, “It’s what you become in the end that will make the journey of all your seasons worth it all.”