I've been quiet on my blog while I was finishing my book. I felt like I was weaving the last few threads into a tapestry made of grace. While that season came to an end, another was fast to begin. It happened so fast, that the lines just blended. I am feeling the weight of Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven…"
Life pushes us on and we hang on tight so we don't get swept under it all. Do you feel the rush today? There's a lot that we can say for the seasons, the perfect time for everything, yet maybe we're feeling like it's the worst of time for some things. People say life is full of defining moments, I think life is full of redefining, because every season changes us. From one season to the next we may not know pieces of ourselves anymore. There's loss that we feel at cell level and no measure of words or well wishes or even counsel will ever make the ache go completely away.
“To everything there is a season…”
Have you ever looked to the sky and your soul screams, “I am not ready to say good bye”? When we can't hold on to what was, as it's slipping through our fingers, those things we knew would or could eventually come to an end, but how did it come so soon? What happens when love ends or death comes or reality hit harder than we thought? When loss changes our course or maybe knocked us right off any course we were on and we're wandering around, realizing in the loss, we lost pieces of ourselves as well.
“To everything there is a season…”
But when time marches on right over us and we are trampled by a weight we aren't ready to bear, we might think that all of it just isn't fair. Maybe the grief is so deep you can't even speak. Or the pain is so real you can't even deal, or the regrets are causing you to disconnect, from life, from them, maybe even from Him. Did we get lost in the shove of life where we chased things that took our time and our attention away from what mattered? Or did we stand firm, totally present, totally engaged but now we feel violated by time’s harsh march sweeping what we loved or what we wanted away.
“To everything there is a season…”
And with every change of season, there is a grieving. Some grieve loud and some grieve quiet, but we all grieve, many times over. Grief has many laments, but I always hear grief cry, "why couldn't I have just a little more time"? Sometimes we don’t feel the freedom or the safety to admit the reality of the grieving. Too often we find ourselves alone, thinking no one really understands this. Or maybe we’re afraid to admit it, because we think it’s best to not feel anything at all like this. Let me just say, it's okay to feel this way as the seasons inevitably change. Let’s remember together right here, right now that there's a God who tells you “there’s a time to mourn.” [Eccl. 3:4]
“To everything there is a season…”
Have we accepted it? I know, accepting it feels like a defeat sometimes. Accepting makes us feel like we have to move on before we’re ready or that we have to let go of something we can’t let go of at all. Accepting it might feel like we are giving pain permission to reside. But consider this, maybe when the accepting comes it is actually a moment of release into the arms of a precious friend, Jesus, who’s carrying all that grief with you. "Then, when Mary came where Jesus was, and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying to Him, "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died, therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, "Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus wept." [John 11:32-35] He wept because they wept, even though right before this He reminded Martha just exactly who He was. “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’” [John 11:25-27 NKJV] Do we believe Him? The Redeemer of time? Jesus; who conquered death for us on that beautifully tragic cross? The One who promises that life will come from this loss, somewhere, somehow, where we may not expect it.
“To everything there is a season…”
But the pain still makes this hard to believe and hard to receive, doesn’t it? Maybe we can’t help but wonder, “where was He? why didn't He stop it? why did he let them go, why didn’t He fix it, why didn’t He care about me there?” Loved one, He was right there. He loved you enough to bring you a kind of love and kind of holding together that only He can bring. "He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together." [Colossians 1:17 NLT] If you're breathing air it's because of His love. "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." [Genesis 2:7 NKJV] If you’re breathing, then don’t forget that He still has a plan for you.
“To everything there is a season…”
“But I can't move on. I don't want to move on. I am too altered, too tired, too hurt…ugh, nothing can fix this hurt.” Yeah, He knows, when He walked that suffering road and He bore that wretched shame, it was the loss that made Him scream, "my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?" [Matthew 27:46]
Loved one, He knows. He's weeping with you because He knows. He's trying to press in close to carry some of that pain with you, for you.
So, even if you're a little angry, maybe feeling like you can't trust Him, the hard truth is that He's the only one who can hold you together and move you on, even in all you're altered, redefined state. Only He can resurrect your life after the death, redeem what's been lost, and lift up what's fallen. He's the only one who can cover our gaps with grace, and keep writing the story after this unexpected, gut-wrenching plot twist. He's the author and finisher [Hebrews 12:2], the beginning and the end [Revelation 22:13] and in the middle of it all, He’s covering you.
"He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler." [Psalm 91:4]
So, “To everything there is a season…”
And as one season ends and another begins, He's the only one who can light the path before us, or show us the way out of this tunnel. He's the light that shines in the midst of this dark place. Then all of a sudden, even when time marches on, we know He is the one who holds time in His hands, and we can see that the sun still shines in every season.
"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end." [Ecclesiastes 3:11 NKJV]
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