Seasons of Change: When Seasons Collide

I am sitting in one of my favorite spots, a little sofa where I do my morning devotionals and my evening journaling. I am a mix of emotions right now.

On one hand, I am excited as another one of my children will get married this weekend. The first got married just a few short months ago. It seems only yesterday that I was running around taking them to school, music practice, Cub Scouts, and hoping that they wouldn’t get the next nasty flu bug going around school. As I think about the years that have passed, I fondly remember the good moments. I remember with chagrin the times I wasn’t my best mom. I remember when I was irritated and frustrated that they wouldn’t listen.

From another angle, I’m irritated. I have been on a non-stop run for the last three months with work and life events that keep me active almost seven days a week. We got a fantastic opportunity at work that allows me and others to work on building something really cool. I have had lots of family events related to the weddings. Our youngest dog had to have knee surgery and I have been nursing him back to health. We are finally getting some outside work done around our house–I have been waiting for three years! All these are good things, even the dog’s surgery. But they all require my attention. They all impact my daily life, if even only a tiny bit. T

All together are JUST TOO MUCH!

Still, another angle shows me full of anger, disappointment, and sadness as the news keeps bringing me word of more ways that we are losing our ability to see and care for each other as people: wars, natural disasters, hateful people, Ukraine, Israel, politics. I am grieved by what I hear and seek. I am heartbroken and unsure of how to respond.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 says that there is a season for everything. I agree. However, I wonder why sometimes I get all the seasons at once! I live in a place where we do experience distinctive four seasons. There is something I relish about each season. There is also something I dislike about each season. But I know that when one season seems to step out of line and collide with another, we are often unprepared to respond well.

I feel the anxiety of unpreparedness right now. Unprepared to move gracefully into a new chapter of life with in-laws and maybe babies. Unprepared to respond to the world’s dysfunction. Unprepared to know how to set boundaries that are healthy and loving.

As I muse about it, the word that keeps coming up is grace. By his all-sufficient grace, my unpreparedness won’t change the course of the world. It’s okay that I’m a bit unprepared. God will use my unpreparedness to grow me and mold me into his best version of me. Thank God for that!

Contributed by Liz Hunt