Shabat Thoughts: On Seasons


This week I've been thinking a lot about seasons for various reasons.  First, there are the leaves drifting slowly to the ground and piling up under the trees.  It is the natural season, a time of change, a season of purpose...

I thought about seasons of life, most especially of a woman's life, as Bess and Amie and my niece have just given, or are about to give birth.  I am in a different season, a season when that possibility is at an end.

I thought about my daughters Lori and Amie and Bess and dear Virginia raising children from infant stage to pre-teen. I think of my small heartache for those hands on parenting days being well behind me now, two widely varying seasons of parenting.

I thought about my new grandbabies just starting life and my cousin who has been told the end of his own life is imminently near...Two very different seasons of life, a beginning and an end.



And then I thought of other seasons, some of which I've had reason to recall of late:  the season of new love, and of falling out of love but waiting for love to bloom once more, the sorrow that came when love died and the joy when it sprang to life.  The season of overwhelming tiredness and busyness when children are young and money is tight and the season of time when money is to be had but time itself is scarce.  The season of blessings that come now and then, and the seasons of making every repair known to man.  The seasons of health and illness.  The season of struggling to find God and the season of learning to TRUST Him once found...It seemed to me that really life is just a series of seasons of all sorts being lived out all at once.

I realized at last, how deeply powerful Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 is:




1For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
2A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant and a time to harvest.
3A time to kill and a time to heal.
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
4A time to cry and a time to laugh.
A time to grieve and a time to dance.
5A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
6A time to search and a time to quit searching.
A time to keep and a time to throw away.
7A time to tear and a time to mend.
A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
8A time to love and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.

It seemed silly to go on with my own thoughts when Solomon had already said it so well...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just like when we are in summer we wish for fall,...when we are younger we wish to be older. Time though goes fast enough. All the old people walking around have old shells but young spirits. They still dream and wish and hope and pray the same as they did in their youth. Some things got dampened and some got brighter but their spirit is still theirs. Even if they can't yet dance like they once did they can still feel the sway and music in their minds. Youth is but a few chapters old in mind and experience but the older you get the more chapters,.. then books you become. One person is very extra knowledgable in say animals and another in music and yet another in the solar system. Put them all together and you have a book of knowledge. I am astonished at the knowledge when I sit and listen to a group of people discussing life. I also feel very unknowledgable at times as I realize how little I personally know. Then though I have to sit back and realize I too have a set of things that interest me and I can impart knowledge about. God made each of us different so we could compliment each other. You never know what is inside a person's heart or mind till you sit down and take the time to actually talk with them. Or sit and listened to them. You will not regret you did. Sarah