seasons of life

All artwork in this post by digitalart at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Wednesday I posted about a significant change in my writing life, but my major adjustment barely scratched the surface of all the other changes that went on around me last week.

The first week of August 2012 will go down forever in my memory as amazing. Two dear friends of mine, former members of my children’s choir held the most romantic wedding I’ve ever seen. As I watched them and their families and friends dance across the floor during the reception, I realized this group would not rejoice together again until we meet in heaven. The bride and groom moved away. The groom’s parents, some of mine and my sweet hubby’s best friends, moved several hundred miles away only two days after the event to a new ministry. Of those left behind, all meeting and growing close through the fellowship of a local church, only a few couples still attend. Most of us are spread in churches across the metroplex and seldom meet.

While the bride and groom say goodbye with their eyes to the future, building a new life together, the groom’s family does the same as they begin a new foundational chapter. Earlier in the day, Sweet Hubby visited another good friend in the last stages of cancer, a totally different type of season. And just before the wedding, one of my besties called weeping, with unexpected news that her mom had passed away. So many dramatic changes, I felt my head shaking and not to the beat of the music at the wedding reception.

Just like this hot summer will fade, changing the landscape, fashions, and the very aroma of the world around us, the fabric of our lives changes. Think of your own life. Unless you’re very young, you can likely identify with some of the changes I’ve mentioned and am about to mention. I think there are three main types of seasons in our lives. I could get creative here, like Starbucks, but I see them simply large, medium, and small.

The medium seasons are the ones we notice changes in most and are often related to the way we define ourselves – our jobs, careers, or aspirations. I’ve been a teacher for public school, a cooperative teacher, a children’s music ministry director, a consultant for a scrap-booking company, and a writer. Doubtless, even if you’ve done the same type of job for many years, you can see how the seasons of that position changed.

During the medium seasons are all of the small episodes. More akin to actual seasons, they complicate and offer variety to our lives. You know what I mean: soccer or volleyball season, prom season, school year, musical season, holiday season, vacation time, etc.

Then there are the large waves of life that span basic seasons. These would include the years we have babies in the house, or school children, supporting aging family members, relocating, watching our friends go home before us. These massive changes are the ones where the Lord really works in our lives, supporting and strengthening us through huge directional adjustments. These seasons leave us both vulnerable and malleable. When we’re broken and humble before God, He can use us to do the work He needs. Usually times like these offer intensive patience training and require the willingness to fully rest on Him and learn to wait for His leading.

I think contentment comes when we’re able to look at our season of life and know that it doesn’t conquer us. Embracing it along with the giddiness or pain, we can throw back our heads and smile at God knowing full well He holds us close and will give us whatever we need to accomplish His work. He’s never too early in his supply for those needs, but He’s also never too late.