Week One       There is a Season

Day One         Learning

        

     My daughter, Angela, and I were listening to the radio the other day and we spoke of how a song can bring you back to a specific day, a specific summer, a specific emotion or time, immediately, at the sound of those first few notes.

      What are some of your trigger songs that bring to mind a season of life? Let me share a few of mine. As a baby boomer maybe some of you will remember….

      Sitting across the street from Jon’s house with my sixth grade friends, watching for the boy we had a crush on, wearing our surfer shirts and listening to the Beach Boys on a transistor radio; listening to Carole King’s Tapestry over and over with my high school friends; Somewhere Out There, a song of comfort after my mom’s death; Just You and I, the first song my husband and I danced to at our wedding; more recently, with the recognition of our daughters moving into adulthood, Rascal Flatts, My Wish, and one of my favorite worship songs, When All Is Said and Done.

     Sweetness and sorrow, beginnings and goodbyes, dancing and tears, all of the seasons of our lives bring about a little bit of everything don’t they?

     Take a peek at these verses from Ecclesiastes. You may remember the song, Turn, Turn, Turn, by the Byrds. You may or may not have known that the words to this song come from this book in the Bible.

                                                 

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens; a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 NIV

     Whatever season, whatever age, whether you are dancing or in mourning, whether it is a day to laugh or cry, give it all to our God. He is right there in every season; in praise, in suffering, in joy, in peace, in anger, and always in hope. Maybe like me, you realize the older you get, just in one easy turn, another decade has disappeared. And it is often in the times of suffering, whether disease, divorce, disability, or despair over a loss, the deepest lessons are forged. You realize there is a purpose, a plan, someone Bigger than it all. And He was there all along, just waiting for you to look up. Jesus is there for every season, from the day of our birth to our last day on earth and everyday in between, He loves you.

Dear Jesus,

There is a purpose in every season, so much bigger and deeper and wider than these minuscule eyes can comprehend. Help us to see Your goodness and Your glory even through our seasons of suffering and help us to hang on to all of the bright memories from our past, as we dance and sing to those old songs.