Embracing the seasons

   
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come. –Song of Songs 2:11–12
     
     
As I write this—Friday morning—the day is overcast, rainy, cool, dreary. Patches of snow linger about the hillsides, in crevices—wherever the ground is in more shadow than sun. Where there isn’t snow, there’s mud or spongy, marshy terrain.
     
On days like this I’d rather strap on my CPAP mask, pull a pillow over my head, snuggle beneath a quilt, and succumb to slumber. Or bury my nose in a good book. Anything but look outside.
     
As I glance out the back patio door, though, I see clusters of green and white snowdrops pushing up through the rotting leaves of the forest floor behind my house. And I know the daffodils will soon emerge below the stone wall in the front yard.
     
I’m so ready for spring.
     
But not this wet, muddy, mushy mess that’s spring in these parts. Which is why spring is my least favorite season.
     
But it is what it is.
     
Not all good and not all bad.
     
Just like winter, which really isn’t as bad as we make it out to be.
     
Winter is a time for growing things to rest, for animals to hibernate. It’s a time when I spend long evenings crocheting, reading, or doing something I’d feel guilty doing when the weather’s nice and I can get outside without falling and breaking something.
     
Every season has its good aspects and not-so-good aspects. What we choose to focus on determines whether or not we find the joy in the season.
     
Just like life.
     
I’m not just referring to the seasons of life as we tend to think of them—childhood, youth, adulthood, middle age, and finally our sunset years.
     
I’m talking about the seasons of life-change—when our lives change in ways we don’t plan or want. A financial setback. Illness. Disability. A wayward child. A broken relationship. Betrayal. Death. Divorce. Anything that leads to brokenness—a broken heart, a broken spirit, broken dreams. Seasons of pain and drought and floods of tears. Seasons when the roads are impassable and we can go no further. Or, as the old timers say, when we get the stuffing knocked out of us.

As I write this, I'm thinking of a dear writing colleague and friend who recently lost her husband of 35 years to cancer. I'm thinking of one of my little flock who is the caregiver for her mother, who has suffered a series of strokes, each one leaving her more debilitated than the last one.
     
These times, like seasons, are not here to stay. They, too, will pass.

We can spend the season bemoaning our fate, questioning God, and making ourselves more miserable.
     
Or we can embrace it for what it is, remembering that if we have chosen to believe in a sovereign, loving God, we know whatever He allows in our lives has a purpose we may not understand or see this side of eternity.
     
Child of God, push on in faith, trust that all things WILL work out for your good (Romans 8:28), and remind yourself that nothing can separate you from His love (Romans 31–39).
     
Only when we choose to embrace each season for what it is do we find the daffodils of hope and the snowdrops of joy sprinkled in the places only the SON can reach.
     
     
Thank you, God, that You are the One in control of the seasons of my life. Help me to embrace whatever season You send, knowing Your plan and purpose is for my ultimate good. Amen.

More tea: Read Ecclesiastes 3:1–8

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How about a love story of an Army nurse and a Dustoff pilot who meet, fall in love, and get married while on their tour of duty during the Vietnam War, only to have him go MIA and show up 40 years later with amnesia? (The Heart Remembers) 

Or the story of a 50-something woman with a lackluster marriage who wants to fall head over heels in love just one more time before she dies? (Before I Die) 

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Or maybe you'd prefer something inspirational for your devotional reading. (God, Me & a Cup of Tea for download and in print)

Unforced rhythms of grace

Judith Maddock Ferencz, June 2, 2001

“Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.” – Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 11:29 (The Message)
      
Yesterday was the eleventh anniversary of my sister’s death.
      
She was only 55. It was totally unexpected.
      
These things change you. Change the way you think about things. Change the way you live.
      
I’d been teaching full time and writing part time for a local newspaper for years. With the youngest in college and the older two on their own, now was the time to pursue my dreams.
      
While teaching was my passion, I wasn’t finding fulfillment in covering school board and county commissioners meetings and election results. And while I loved the camaraderie of the newsroom staff, getting up early Saturday mornings to drive 45 minutes in all kinds of weather to type obituaries wasn’t getting me any closer to my writing goals.
      
Of course I ignored the signs of dissatisfaction and pushed on. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?
      
Then a post-operative blood clot took the life of my only sister just when we were getting close again. I didn’t even have a chance to say goodbye.
      
I shivered on the love seat for days, in shock.
      
Change. It’s foisted on all of us. Whether we welcome it or not.
      
The key to surviving it is to look to God, knowing He has a plan and purpose for us (Jeremiah 29:11, Psalm 139:16), knowing He takes the rough draft of the chapters of our lives and revises them so they shine (Romans 8:28) and lead to the ending He has planned. And knowing that if we follow our Shepherd, we will arrive at that ending without burning ourselves out.
      
But I hadn’t been stopping long enough to listen to God.
      
My sister’s death was a wakeup call—to pause in my headlong rush to fulfill my dreams and be all things to all people, and determine where I was truly headed.
      
Davis Bunn, in his 40-day devotional “The Turning,” writes, “When we read, we give no notice to the spaces between the words. And yet those pauses are vital. Without them, there is nothing but a senseless jumble. With them, thoughts are unique, words are clear, ideas fashioned, lives transformed. So it is with the brief pauses we make to stop and listen. Our thoughts and actions take on new clarity.”
      
And so it was for me. If I were to die suddenly in my mid-fifties, I thought, would I have realized my dreams? Within a week, I resigned from the newspaper job.
      
I still get too busy, lose focus, and drift away from God’s path for me. It’s refreshing to pause, still the clamor of life, rest and recharge spent batteries.
      
“Are you tired? Worn out?” Jesus says. “Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace” (Matthew 11:28–29, The Message).
      
      
I’m a slow learner, Lord. I have to force myself to slow down. Sometimes my body, mind, and spirit are just too exhausted to push on. Remind me often to pause to reflect, rest, and recharge. Amen.

Special-Tea: Read Matthew 11:28-30; Psalm 23

Judi was a gifted classical pianist  (November 1985)

Immutable God

The ABC’s of knowing God better: the letter “I”

      
For I am the LORD, I do not change. –Malachi 3:6 (NKJV)
      
. . . like clothing they will be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will never end. – Hebrews 1:12 (NRSV)
      
      
Every Thursday on Facebook, it’s “Throwback Thursday,” when pictures of folks in years gone by are posted online. It’s amazing to see the changes – in clothing and hairstyles, how much the kids have grown, how thin I was. TBT pictures never fail to get comments: “Look at those 80s glasses!” or “That dress is definitely 70s.” “WOW! Time does move along very fast.” Or (my personal favorite) “Wasn’t that just yesterday?”
      
When I was young, I craved change. I didn’t want to get old and set in my ways. I didn’t want to be like my mother, who, I’d jokingly said, was like concrete – all mixed up and permanently set. I didn’t want to be ready for bed Saturday evenings at 9. I wanted to be on my way to a night of dancing with my friends.
      
Well, guess what? I’m showered and in my jammies by 8 and in bed by 10. Forty years brought a heap of changes. Some I like and some I don’t.
      
Nothing in this world is permanent – not even concrete, which over time wears down and develops cracks. Our bodies grow old and wear out, no matter what we do to try to prevent or reverse the process. Time moves on, bringing changes to people, places, and things.
      
I think back to our years at “the Ridge,” which we called the small country church we attended a few miles from our home in Smithport. I miss the people and the fun we had. I miss Paul and Sue, Steve and Jan, Sam and Deb, Pastor Bob and Edna, Carl and Louise, Mark and Chippie, just to name a few of the many wonderful folks who were our church family. We raised our kids together. We studied the Bible together. We picnicked and camped out together, planned VBS and holiday programs together. We shared many a carry-in supper.
      
But I couldn’t go back and expect things to be the same. For one, Carl and Louise are in heaven. Sam and Deb have moved from the area, as have Paul and Sue, who now pastor a church in West Virginia. What I wouldn’t give for one more picnic on the hill!
      
Yes, change is inevitable in this world.
      
But not in the next. Glory hallelujah! Because my next stop is heaven, God’s home. Heaven will not change, except for new souls arriving, because God does not change.
      
That’s why Jesus told us, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19–21 NKJV).”
      
We’ll deal with change for the rest of our lives. But, thank God, we can count on His unchanging grace – now and in eternity.
      
      
“Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day; earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away; change and decay in all around I see; O Lord who changes not, abide with me.”* Amen.

 
Special-Tea: Read Hebrews 1:10–12; Numbers 23:19

From “Abide with Me” by Henry F. Lyte. Public domain.