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
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2007
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