Dearest Sisters ~

I have been remembering you in prayer and pray that the LORD is sustaining, guiding and providing for everything that concerns you.  Today’s letter is being written with the hope that I might encourage you with the encouragement the LORD has been giving me in regards to family and home. 


The Next Season
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You know, it’s often hard to move into the next season and leave the previous season behind, for there are always residual effects of the previous season that we carry into the next.  For example, we’ve just come through a busy summer and though the autumn season is upon us, there are still “summer things” to wrap up… there are still needful things to take care of.  I keep thinking:  I know I need to do today what I will later wish I had done.  I will do today what I will later be glad I did.   I’ve got to be eager today to invest for tomorrow… to can or freeze or dry foods that will be delightful later.  I need to keep this in mind as I walk through these days.   I mustn’t live today based on my feelings, my comfort or my convenience.   I need to live this day, this season: in light of the next!!  What I do or what I’ve done in this season will directly affect the next season.

I talked with my friend this morning about the coming autumn and winter season.  She and I share the similar view of the long, cold and wet winters of the Pacific Northwest – we both dread the cold, dreary days.  It’s interesting to hear it from another’s perspective because it both confirms and convicts.  It confirms I’m not alone in this “dread,” but it also convicts: would God have me to dread a season or a provision --- for I know the autumn and winter are very, very needful in life.   So I mull over my response to the seasons… I mull over my response to God’s necessary design.

So, I seek to see with new eyes… Projects need completing in order to be put away for the season and in order to make way for the coming season.  And there needs to be a willingness to leave the season behind and be willing to not simply face, but to embrace, the next season.     

I know I struggle with this in terms of my own “personal life seasons” and the discouragement I’ve felt with the passing of the seasons and the doubts that loom regarding the coming seasons.  I was accustomed, for example, to the season of childbearing – the productive season of my life.  And when that season came to a close or appeared to have come to a close, I was (and often still am) overcome with a sense of hopelessness or a sense of loss.  I felt the value or purpose of my life was insignificant if I wasn’t going to be able to carry on as I had.  I sort of see it now like my porch lined with the hanging baskets… if they’re not full of beautiful flowers and trailing vines, what good is the porch?  The less I was “needed” by my children, the less value I placed on my role as the mother of our home.  I was almost persuaded that I was expendable, marginalized, essentially unnecessary.   But there’s more than meets the eye.  And I need to look at that. I’m blinded by what I cannot see. 

But God. 

But God who is rich in mercy has shown that our worth or value is not in what we do or in what season we live but in who we are in Him in each season.  Our worth is not determined by our doings but by our beings.  And so… that season passed; I faced a new season.  What am I going to be in the new season.  Am I going to be joyful in Him, used of Him, glad in Him?  The new season has inherently in it all of the seasons… I’m in the autumn season --- but I’m in the spring of the autumn season.  This season is new to me and I need to see the blossoming, the growth, the springing forth that the LORD has for me, for my family, for my walk with Him in this season.  I need to seek Him for the days of this season so that I might bring Him glory and honour in all that I do – in light of all He has done –both in this season and in all the others previous to this.

 

Maybe you, too, are in the autumn season… maybe you are wondering, as I have been, what will this next season bring.  Maybe you’re in the late spring season of life, of marriage, of home and family.  Maybe you’ve spent several years getting ready for motherhood and now the LORD is bringing your first child and you’re seeing everything through new eyes.  It’s a marvelous time and yet it’s a swift moving time… you’re likely seeing that all too soon: it’s passing. 

A friend of ours passed from this life into the waiting arms of the LORD yesterday. I’m mindful today of the swift passing seasons and the importance of living – really living – in the moment.  For this moment will soon be past and the next one will pass as swiftly.  Unless we savour the moments – delighting in the days,  we’ll come to the end of each season with little in our hands and not much over which to rejoice in the coming season.

 We can trust God for His seasons – we must trust Him.  He has perfect reasons for His seasons, for the order and events of each one.  He is only good and His ways are only good.  I think we miss that sometimes when we look to ourselves instead of to Him and to His Word.
 

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant,
and a time to pluck up that which is planted; 
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down,
and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;  A time to cast away stones,
and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace,
and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get,
and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence,
and a time to speak;  A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.”
Ecclesiastes 3.1-8

  I pray that in whatever season you find your self today that God is your abiding strength and joy and that you will face tomorrow, whatever comes, in light of that joy and strength and that He will, indeed, be your All in all.

 I also pray that you will join me in making the best of this season, using whatever you have in your hand, being a wise steward of whatever gifts the LORD has given you and make your home a sweet place – a haven of rest and delight for your family.  I pray you’ll join me in singing to the LORD: I have decided to follow Jesus… I have decided to follow Jesus… I have decided to follow Jesus… no turning back, no turning back.  Wherever He leads I will follow.  No matter what the season brings… I will follow.    In joy or in sorrow… whatever today, whatever tomorrow… I will follow.

 God bless you in your home… God bless you in your walk.  God bless you in your thoughts and may He be the center of them all.

 With sincere love,  pamela, your sister in the LORD

  http://www.AChristianHome.org  © 2007

 

 

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