The seasons of our lives

I often have a hard time letting go of summer. But as I watch the red and orange leaves gently wisp through the air, only to rest on the gentle roll of the lake, I am reminded of the beauty of fall. The older I get, the more inclined I am to embrace all the seasons. As we move from summer to fall, I am learning to trust the transition. Much like the seasons of our lives, opening up to it and even being thankful for it, leads to understanding of the purpose.

Last week, I wrote a blog entitled, Our Vertical Relationship with God. Click the link here if you missed it. I compared our relationship with God to the up’s and down’s we experience, “much like the seasons of our lives or the flow of a river.”

In it, I talk about our “appointed time” and reference Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 NIV;

Today, as I continue to reflect on this scripture, I am comforted. As we move through the seasons of summer to fall, we also transition through seasons of our lives. Ironically, my calendar message reads, “There is a time for everything.”  God is reminding me of another lesson I need to learn.

There is a season for everything.

Just a couple years back, on Labor Day weekend, I remember the temperatures dropping earlier than normal. Usually, we could squeeze at least three, if not four, more weekends at the lake. Not that year. I found myself mad and resisting the next season. I thought by not giving into the change, I somehow could delay it. How silly is that? When this didn’t work, I began begging God to give me one more warm day. Bargaining for one last boat ride of the season. I even had a little temper-tantrum in the privacy of my own mind. All my efforts did not stop summer from ending early that year.

What I realized was our lives move through seasons as well. Looking back over my life, I see times of plenty and times of lack. Seasons of sickness and loss often followed by times of health, peace and thanksgiving. Sometimes, I have been forced to let go of things, only to realize the loss made room for new and unexpected things.

Here is the lesson; with every change, we have a choice. We can resist or we can embrace.

With every change, we have a choice. 

Parker Palmer says, in his book, Let Your Life Speak,

“Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer’s abundance decays toward winter’s death… In my own experience of autumn, I am rarely aware that seeds are being planted… But as I explore autumn’s paradox of dying and seeding, I feel the power of metaphor. In the autumnal events of my own experience, I am easily fixated on surface appearances — on the decline of meaning, the decay of relationships, the death of a work. And yet if I look more deeply, I may see the myriad possibilities being planted to bear fruit in some season.”

“There is a right time for everything.” -The Living Bible

There is not just a time for everything but there is a RIGHT time for everything. As humans, we think we know what is best and what is not in any given situation. But we do not. Only God knows. These are the times when we lean in on God and trust His goodness and mercy.

Looking back, often allows us to see seeds that were planted in a difficult time in our lives. Seeds we could not have possibly noticed in the midst of it all. Nonetheless, they are there. Giving depth, meaning, and purpose to those times.

Proverbs 16 says,