Seasons

Have you ever noticed how the weather can affect our mood?  When the sun’s out and there’s a slight nip in the air we feel like we’ve got to get out and go do something; work in the yard, go for a walk or a drive.  Even the dog goes crazy when I let her outside, running and jumping and rolling around.  But on rainy days, we want to curl up with a good book or take a nap.  What a blessing days like today are.  The air is clear, the sky is so blue, and the sun is shining – beautiful!

Spring is slowly, but surely, making its way to my part of the world.  The flowers and trees have begun to bloom, temperatures are becoming warmer and everyone’s spirit is a little bit brighter.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who doesn’t like spring.  Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, and Home Depot parking lots are filling up with mulch, potting soil, rock, flowers, and plants; yes, spring is in the air!

You may not have ever thought about it in this way before but we, too, go through seasons in our personal/spiritual lives.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There’s a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven…a time to be born and a time to die…a time to plant and a time to harvest…a time to cry and a time to laugh…”

Listen, I’ve been through some seasons that were so rough, so physically, emotionally, and spiritually taxing that I thought I might not make it.  The valleys can be really deep sometimes, but I can testify that every mountain top experience I have ever had has matched the valley I just came out of 2 to 1.  God has always, always been faithful! 

When we were younger, my husband hated the thought of growing older.  I honestly thought God was going to have to drag him there kicking and screaming.  I, on the other hand, have always looked forward to getting older; slowing down, relaxing in my rocker on the porch, less responsibility, senior citizen discounts…Well, I finally made it!  I’m in the winter of my life and I’m a grandmother.  I cannot ever remember a sweeter season.  People always said, “Oh, wait till you become a grandparent!” like it’s some kind of prize – well, I’m here to testify that it is!!  I have said many times to others that this is what I was created for – being a grandmother.  It doesn’t matter how bad I feel or how rotten my day was, my grandchildren can put a smile on my face and a warm glow in my heart.

Sometimes I think we should wait to have our children when we are in our 40’s and 50’s because with age comes wisdom – and patience.  But then I take a closer look and I realize that God gives us an opportunity to share our latter years with this blessing of unspeakable joy we know as grandchildren.  It’s because the pace is slower that I have more time to study them, to listen to them, to love on them when they’re here.  I look at it as a kind of temporal reward that we receive for just surviving this far.  Certainly it’s not eternal but it surely has eternal significance. 

One of the greatest joys I am experiencing is the talks I am able to have with my grandchildren about God; about who He is and who they are in Him.  I don’t want to ever forget the feeling I had the first time I saw my youngest grandson fold his hands to pray at the dinner table; it was the most precious thing in the world.  During the first Bible study my only granddaughter and I had, I was able to teach her that she is the child of a King; this is a lesson most women don’t get until they’re grown.  And burned in my heart forever is the memory of my oldest grandson sobbing because his father told him he doesn’t believe in God.  What a special opportunity God gave us to pray with him about this burden no small child should ever have to bear.  I know that the older they get, the sweeter our conversations will become; it is a time I am so looking forward to. 

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that the seasons change and we along with them.  Most things that appear dead in winter are resurrected in spring and each spring is more beautiful than the last.  Life does go on and we must not waste a single day of it.

“God has made everything beautiful for its own time…”  Ecclesiastes 3:11