I look outside my window to a bleak gray sky. The last few red leaves cling to nearly bare trees. All but a few flowers stand wilted, longing for warmer days. Patches of brown interrupt an expanse of green grass. Fall rapidly fades to winter. This time of change feels, strained, awkward, and even ugly at times.
Right now, my heart too is going through some major shifts and transitions. I always thought of myself as someone so ready to embrace change, yet, recently, I often found myself either grieving the past or anxiously anticipating the future. With so many hopes about how this new chapter in my life should look, I began feeling discouraged that not everything went as planned. Worries and stress consumed my days. What I thought would be an easy transition, became a struggle. However, a few days ago I looked at this "season" of life in light of the current season surrounding me.
Although awkward and seemingly ugly at times, the transition from fall to winter provides such a beautiful time of reflection, awe, and gratitude. In this season we are offered a time to pause and remember the astounding beauty of autumn, only moments past, and joyfully anticipate the coming
elegance of winter.
I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3:1, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven."
This, right now, is my season of reflection and hope. Instead of longing for all I had before, I am choosing to appreciate each past experience that shaped me. Instead of anxiously worrying about next year or the year after, I am placing my hopes and trusts, for the future, in Christ.
How wonderful is it that, in this transitional month of November, we are offered such a wonderful time to give thanks? Families, all over, gather to celebrate blessings past and still to come! A beautiful season has past, but I know in these uncomfortable, and difficult, yet graceful and lovely moments of transition, God is preparing me for a glorious new season! Right now, I am praying my eyes and heart will be open to what God is doing in my life today!