Seasons

A season. To everything there is a season. My submission is tested in reflection on the seasons of life. 

Perhaps it is not wholly an antipathy toward change. Perhaps it is a reticence, a hesitance in the process. I enjoy the changing seasons as far as weather is concerned; I’m so excited for coffee and snow in the winter; for green grass, fresh breezes, and sunshine in spring; for cool sunrises and long warm nights brought by summer; for fall’s gift of sweet smells and overcast days. These seasons, though, are different; they come gradually, almost unnoticed. Living in NM, we have a few unexpected days scattered throughout each season, but we know these will disappear into the endless cycle. By the time the cold ends, we will be ready to shed jackets; when the sun disappears, we’ll be so glad to turn the air conditioners off and walk outside without sweating. The seasons are welcome.

The seasons of life are much more difficult for me. The changes come more suddenly, or so it seems. I certainly wasn’t ready to leave the spring newness of actually knowing what I was teaching to hit the long adventure of cultivating the same lives for another year - but in a different grade. I didn’t notice the diminishing sunshine before the clouds of my siblings’ departure hit our family.   Smaller changes have the same effect. I’m not ready to distance myself from a friendship because someone else has come into the picture; yet just as snow brings much needed moisture and beauty, I know these relationships will not serve only to isolate me. And what of spring, of fresh hope and longed for freedom? Do I always see this coming? I didn’t. I didn’t see the joy I’d find when God moved me to Santa Rosa. I never dreamed of the fresh blooms He’s growing around me in my “family of God.” And truly, the breezes of His presence are something “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived...” (I Corinthians 2:9).

And so, as seasons change, I will look to the Maker of the seasons.