Changing of the seasons

Friday, August 9, 2013

If I can figure out how to upload a youtube video I would like to share one of my favorite songs of all time. I don't listen to it everyday but in different stages of life it has played a big role in my life. 



I listened to it non stop the summer of 2003 when I was living in Virginia Beach with Campus Crusade - spending one whole amazing and scary summer in a place where I knew no one. I listened to it during that first summer after graduating college where I was single, living at home, had moved away from the college town where my friends and church were...oh and I was a professional gift wrapper at Macy's wondering what in the heck I was doing with my life (I still love wrapping gifts to this day though). 

I listened to it a few years later when I packed up my room to move into the house Josh and I had bought just before we got married. And last summer I listened to it when I was leaving the full time working world I had known for 8 years, the job I had had for four years to take care of the tiny mini human growing inside of me. 

One of my favorite metaphors for life is seasons. I know I am bringing out the cheese here but this song describes how God's seasons represent different seasons in our life. Seasons without a husband, seasons with JUST a husband, seasons with a newborn, seasons of money, seasons of $5 date nights at Costco, seasons of living in a house, seeing fruit in ministry, not seeing fruit in ministry, friendships, etc.

Two days ago Lila turned 11 months. She is smiling, and clapping, making faces and blowing kisses. At night when I take her into her room she immediately lays her head on my chest and lets me rock her before I put her down. 

I do not want this season to end. But it will. 

Earlier this week a mom stopped by my house to pick up a little vintage treasure for her daughter moving to Texas for college and my heart ached for this mom. Another mom, told me about how sad she was that her kids were going back to school... and my heart ached for this mom. Another mom, expressed sadness over moving from the house she brought her babies home to...and yep, you guessed it, my heart ached.

But then I thought of little Lila. A year ago, I was so sad to be leaving my job and our life with no kids and so much freedom - but the next season brought Lila and our hearts grew fuller than I knew was possible. 

And I thought about the mom with the college girl ...and how much I LOVED college and how exciting that time is for a girl. Choosing a career, decorating a dorm room, making friends, road trips, late night chats with the girls in your hall. 

And I thought about my friend with the kids in school and how fun the school year can be...

And I thought about moving and how hard it is to leave a place - but in the end it is just a place and this world is not our home.  

And in all of this I am reminded to be thankful for God's past faithfulness - because of that we have hope in the future. 

I am not good at wrapping up a post, so I'll just write some of my favorite lyrics from the song. 

"Still I notice you when change begins and I am braced for colder winds - I will offer thanks for what has been and what is to come....And everything in time and under Heaven, finally falls asleep. Wrapped in blankets white, all creation, shivers underneath. still I notice you when branches crack and in my breath on frosted glass - even now in death you open doors for life to enter. You are winter....what was frozen thru is newly purposed ..so it is with you and how you make me new with every seasons change..."




Not the best pic of makeup-less mama here...but this seems to capture the sweetness of the past 11 months:)