Seasons…

When we are younger, we learn about seasons – especially in Michigan where we can experience all four seasons. It is easy for us to associate the weather with the season. We identify Springtime with blooming flowers and budding trees. Summer is a time for warm weather, sunshine, and BBQs. Fall sets in with a cooler breeze and trees that begin to shed their leaves. Last of all, winter brings our snow, blizzards, ice, and cold temperatures.

Even among scripture we learn of seasons in the book of Psalms, 104:9, “He made the moon to mark the seasons, and the sun knows when to go down.” 

Farmers work constantly around the seasons and may have one of the most difficult and unpredictable jobs. Their productivity of planting and profitability from harvest weighs heavily on the weather. “I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.” ‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭26:4‬ ‭

The kind of seasons I didn’t really learn about growing up were the seasons of life. These so-called seasons that we travel through shape us and allow us to grow. I didn’t fully understand this concept until I became an adult, wife and mother.  

Unlike the seasons of weather, the “seasons of life” may be unpredictable- much like a farmer. You may not know you are entering a new season until you are nearly through the last. Sometimes your season can be refreshing, just as we experience the cool rainfall during the springtime. Other moments of your season you may be faced with a treacherous storm and devastation, whipping you in multiple directions and darkness.

What is it that gets us through our own seasons of life?  Family?  Friends?  Faith? Our jobs?  Perhaps all of the above.  As I read through Ecclesiastes‬, Chapter 3, versus 1-8‬, I’m reminded about these seasons of life that we walk.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

My hope for you dear reader, (even if you are faced with darkness), is to find time to laugh and to dance. May you feel love and find peace as you walk through your seasons.