This isn’t my typical blog post. It won’t be about homeschooling or our house build or crafts or photography. No, this post is about change, seasons of life, seasons of faith and God. Right now is a physical season of change. We can see the fall colors everywhere around us and it’s beautiful. Although I hate the extreme cold, I have always said I couldn’t live too far south because I couldn’t live somewhere I couldn’t see the seasons change.
I’ve never been one to have a favorite season…I love them all for their uniqueness and special things they bring. I hate the cold, but I love snow. Nothing is better than swimming in the sunshine during the summer. The promise of new life is beautiful in the spring when the tulips and daffodils are blooming in all their glory. And right now, nothing beats hot apple cider and a beautiful tapestry of color out my back windows.
I think life is perfectly reflected as changing seasons. There’s seasons of childhood when nothing is as important as the test you have coming up at the end of the week, what your friends are doing on the weekend, and whether or not you’ll get that toy you want for Christmas.
As we grow up there’s seasons of college or singlehood until you meet that special someone and experience the season of early marriage and maybe those highs are combined with the low of seasons of financial struggle and learning to be a team in all things. Sometimes seasons are marked by major events in our lives…a move, a child’s birth, a house purchase, or a death. We often uses these seasonal life transformations in how we talk about the passage of time. “Before *that* happened” or “After so and so passed away” becomes an integral part of the timeline of our lives.
Richard and I have been through many seasons in life…when you’ve been married for 25 years there’s a lot of changes that take place. I believe they say the one guarantee in life is that change is inevitable. Sometimes we’re prepared for that change and sometimes we’re not. I can tell you though that no matter what life throws at us that God is always there. He wants to be there for you, he wants to be there WITH you…if you let him.
Just like seasons in life, we go through seasons of faith. There are times in my life where I have felt like an imposter in my faith. You know….you say you trust him, but in reality you are holding on to control with every fiber of your being and don’t really trust in him to work things out. What’s even worse then is when you are very self aware of how you feel and question your Christianity because you can’t let go and let God as the saying goes. You ruminate on the issue at hand and your crisis of faith and your thoughts spiral out of control even if you look like you have it all together on the outside.
Richard and I are entering a season of change. It was unexpected and unwelcome yet we’ve had some time to prepare before it fully materialized. I feel like God was preparing my heart and my faith even before we had any inkling of the changes to come. The song Fear is a Liar has been imprinted on my spirit for many, many months now.
Other songs like Surrounded (Fight My Battles) and Raise A Hallelujah have also been on my tongue or constantly in my face everywhere I turn. Anyone who really knows me knows one of the biggest ways I connect with God is through song. Music is in my spirit…has been from an early age…and it’s the primary way when I really feel connected to God. The act of worship is an integral part to my relationship with God.
I won’t go into the details of this season of change, but I will say we’ve ran the gamut of emotion…everything from an initial panic to feelings of betrayal and everything in between. And while I won’t lie and say there has been no fear or anxiety, for the most part it’s been short lived. This is a big deal for me….type A, full of anxiety, doesn’t like surprises, likes to be in control, perfectionist me. It’s in knowing how I would have reacted in the past compared to now that really shows me that my faith and reliance on God has grown. I’m relying on him more and my abilities less. He’s got this and he’s giving us signs all over the place to remind us of who he is and who we are (Good, Good Father comes to mind right now).
From very timely memes from Tobymac’s Facebook page to a fortune cookie fortune that said “Don’t Panic” at a time when we believed we had every reason to do just that….God has been sending us messages to soothe our souls and broken spirits.
I don’t know what the next six months or a year have in store for us, but I know God’s got this. It’s not my burden to carry and regardless of what happens we will be okay. Because God started this work, I know he has a plan even if I don’t see it yet. Even among the uncertainty and frustration of this new season we are going into, we’re in the best position in our lives we ever have been in to handle it. That is not a coincidence. That’s God.
He’s here and all around us, you just have to have your eyes open to see what he is doing.
