'Tis the season, they say. Today I read an incredible post. A post about a season. That there is a time for everything. A season for everything. And I so needed to hear this. Because I am in that season.
It is a season where I need to sit quietly. Ponder things. Process things. Look at life from different angles.
It is a season where I have pried off the lid of Pandora's Box of some childhood trauma and am daring to peek inside.
It is a season where I am having to let go of so many things. Long held dreams. Deep longings. False securities. Youth. Physical beauty. A quick and agile mind.
It is a season of unbuilding. Of taking apart the relationship with God that I have had for 38 years. A relationship built too much on a foundation of fear and shame and all the "shoulds" of the kingdom . It is a season to start over from scratch.
It is a season of acceptance. Of being OK with being weak, broken, exhausted to the core.
It is a season of listening. Learning. Learning from one whose yoke and easy and whose burden is light.
It is a season to be quiet and soak in the stillness and the silence. To just be for a while.
Maybe one day I will have the energy again and the drive to get out and push forward and to pour, pour, pour into others, but for now I just can't.
Perhaps most of all it is a season of learning that it is OK to be in a season. And seasons don't last forever.
Monday, December 23, 2019
Friday, December 6, 2019
Winter
I have come to love winter. It just might be my favorite time of the year.
I love the colors. The faded russet of the oak leaves, some fallen and some clinging to their branches until spring. I love the light brown of the cornfields, harvested and sitting empty until ready to give life again. I love the deep green of a grove of pines poking through the mottled brown of the mountainsides. I especially love all of these colors against the backdrop of the gray-blue of winter cloud cover.
I love the crispness of the air. It makes me feel like I can breathe. I love the starkness of the landscape. I can see better. Every tree branch is outlined and out my front windows I can see for miles and miles, a view of the distant mountain peaks across the county and into the next. No other season can hold a candle to the sunsets of winter.
And then the sounds of winter. Winter is the quietest season.
There is a stillness to winter. A slowing down.
Winter, of all seasons, is a season of rest. Animals hibernate. Plants hunker down underground. Life seems to be reduced the the bare essentials.
I feel like I am in a season of winter. And I need this season of winter. I need the quiet. I need the pace. I need to be able to cut away to the bare essentials. I need to see clearly.
I know winter may not look productive. But, for the most part, it is a good and necessary part of life.
If you want to buy a piece of land, look at it in winter. That is the season when the vegetation dies back and you can assess what you have. The barrenness of the landscape allows you to see.
I seem to be in a season of winter, not just on the calendar, but in my life. I am slowing down. I am craving quiet. In the stillness of winter and in the barrenness of my own personal landscape I am able to take an inventory. I am able to see more clearly who I am and who God is and why he has me on the planet in the first place.
For everything there is a season....
I love the colors. The faded russet of the oak leaves, some fallen and some clinging to their branches until spring. I love the light brown of the cornfields, harvested and sitting empty until ready to give life again. I love the deep green of a grove of pines poking through the mottled brown of the mountainsides. I especially love all of these colors against the backdrop of the gray-blue of winter cloud cover.
I love the crispness of the air. It makes me feel like I can breathe. I love the starkness of the landscape. I can see better. Every tree branch is outlined and out my front windows I can see for miles and miles, a view of the distant mountain peaks across the county and into the next. No other season can hold a candle to the sunsets of winter.
And then the sounds of winter. Winter is the quietest season.
There is a stillness to winter. A slowing down.
Winter, of all seasons, is a season of rest. Animals hibernate. Plants hunker down underground. Life seems to be reduced the the bare essentials.
I feel like I am in a season of winter. And I need this season of winter. I need the quiet. I need the pace. I need to be able to cut away to the bare essentials. I need to see clearly.
I know winter may not look productive. But, for the most part, it is a good and necessary part of life.
If you want to buy a piece of land, look at it in winter. That is the season when the vegetation dies back and you can assess what you have. The barrenness of the landscape allows you to see.
I seem to be in a season of winter, not just on the calendar, but in my life. I am slowing down. I am craving quiet. In the stillness of winter and in the barrenness of my own personal landscape I am able to take an inventory. I am able to see more clearly who I am and who God is and why he has me on the planet in the first place.
For everything there is a season....