I’ve lived my whole life in Kentucky – where there are distinct seasons. It’s easier to like winter when I know spring really is coming. I love summer, but fall is always welcome after the long stretches of 95 degrees and one-million-percent humidity. I applaud Mother Nature’s seasons, but I somehow still hesitate to embrace God’s seasons in my life.
The creator and sustainer of time, God uses seasons to shape us and grow us. <<Click to Tweet
Sure, waiting is hard sometimes, but God doesn’t waste that time. He wants us to worship Him while we wait for the next season. Waiting may mean putting a dream on hold until God opens the necessary doors.
Sometimes life – especially with little ones – seems like it’s made up of long days that make up short years. God wants us to treasure those days anyway. Parenting is a calling that God certainly uses to sanctify us and remind us to find Him in the present moments.
Some seasons are hard and others are exciting.
Regardless, God wants to depend on Him and learn from our experiences. Those hard days grow our faith while the exciting ones give us opportunities to proclaim God’s faithfulness.
God tells the Israelites (and us!) about how seasons bring new life:
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland (Isaiah 43:19).
Too many times I’ve focused on the wastelands and forgotten that God would make a way. I’ve stalled change and fought with myself at the crossroads. I’ve neglected to anticipate the goodness that would come while I’ve moaned about the journey. I’ve wished for sunshine when really my life needed the rain.
I've said never to living where I live, a job I loved, quitting said job to be a stay-at-home mom, and enrolling my kids in a private school that turned out to be a perfect fit for us. I’ve shot down my husband’s ideas because they scared me.
I can hear my grandpa saying, “This too shall pass.” And it will – sometimes quicker than we imagine – because seasons do change. God may call us to lay down one thing so we can pick up something new. We may need to open the doors to our houses – and our lives – so we can encourage someone else with our stories of God’s faithfulness. Regardless, God doesn’t leave us in the wilderness, waiting in the wastelands.
Season by season, God makes us new so we can know about the abundant life He promises us. <<Click to Tweet
I’m in an ordinary season. God is teaching me about living in the present and serving right here in my ordinary life. It doesn’t look extravagant, but I know this is where God wants me. He’s making a way for His glory to shine.
What kind of season are you in?
Kristin Hill Taylor believes in seeking God as the author of every story. She tells her favorite story about how God made her a mom through adoption (twice!) in an ebook called “Peace in the Process: How Adoption Built My Faith & My Family,” which is available at Amazon. God continues to surprise her with all the ways her life is nothing like she expected. Kristin lives in Murray, Kentucky, with her college sweetheart husband, Greg, and their two kids, Cate and Ben.