Seasons

Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons in life do not last. The spring rains will come again. Sarah Ban Breathnach
Being someone that generally prefers to start the day at gym, I wake up quite early, around 4:30 am (ok I admit that’s ambitious because I only ever manage to get out of bed around 5am after my snooze button’s had enough of me). In the summer months it is quite easy since it’s pretty uncomfortable to sleep in the heat, sharing space with mosquitos and other bugs. By the time the alarm goes I am all ready for it anyway, and the skyline on the outside is pretty light.

Then suddenly, it’s a lot harder to get out of bed because its much darker in the morning, and the temperature is nippy too.  Suddenly is the key word here. I started wondering at what point does this change actually happen? Is there any specific thing I can pinpoint that indicated this sudden change? Yesterday it was much lighter at 5 am, now suddenly its quite dark. I am sure there’s an explanation in meteorological terms of how the seasonal changes takes place, but to the lay person, the seasons come and go silently without us knowing the hour/time/day. All we know is that certain months of the year represent specific seasons, as we are now in autumn. We also behave in specific ways during certain seasons like eating a lot more in winter to keep ourselves warm etc. But there are usually signs that a certain season is upon you, e.g with winter approaching, it’s quite dark at 6am/pm, it’s chilly in the morning and early evening etc. But as to when the turning point took place is elusive - we only see when we are in the throws of that season that its arrived. Sometimes it takes certain events like late summer rains to usher in the new season, but either way the change seems sudden.

This got me thinking of the seasons in our lives. We have so many things to deal with, so much to contend with. You may be going through different seasons in different aspects of your life. Your personal life might be going exceptionally well but your work/career life may be going through turmoil. Or, everything could just be either going exceptionally well or extremely badly. And when these circumstances do change, it’s a ‘suddenly’ moment, without us knowing  the hour or time.

Whatever the case may be, all I know is that we serve an amazing Father who gave us a word in Eccl 3: 1 - 13 that “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens…”. I am particularly excited to know that as verse 11 says “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”  So no matter what season we are in we ought to continue to serve and praise God.