I absolutely adore this time of year. The weather is growing cooler, but the warmth of the season remains. Everywhere you look the beauty of summer hues continue to grace the earth’s landscape, but a change is waiting quietly within the very fiber of many of the seeds that brought about such radiance. The trees will soon refresh their wardrobe, one stitched with shades indicative of a new season. A season ushering in a time of rest for trees that have produced and remained vibrant for months.
Did you know that leaves don’t really change their color? They are actually the color you see in Fall. If you see a red leaf emerge where once you saw green it is because the chlorophyll has diminished leaving the foliage it’s original color. The sun isn’t out as long as compared to days of summer, so there is less light energy that is crucial for the leaves to make a sugary substance which aids in creating the green color. There are a lot of big “sciency” words that probably should be used here, but I’m keeping it simple. (even though I’d LOVE to read to you about the most precious fox named Fletcher who always visited my class with his fret over the changing seasons. You can take the girl out of teaching but…) Along with less light energy, the tree is preparing for a time of rest and so the leaves…which are like the kitchen for the tree and where food is made…aren’t needed and so they are released. We all know the leaves will return in the Spring, but for a season…the tree is quiet. Resting.
As I reflect on this process and how much I loved teaching this to a class of 5 year olds eager to understand the world around them, I realized something. I am in a winter season. A LOOOONNNGGG winter season that began with a simple word from God. “Go”. Maybe you are too or have been in the past. While there is a very scientific reason for the trees time of rest, there is a very Godly reason for mine. I am convinced of this, although I’m not certain of what that reason is. It’s not quite as simple as explaining the changing seasons and how it affects plant life. Sometimes I think I know, and then other days I am reminded I indeed do not. And that’s ok.
“…It is beyond understanding.”
In Judges 13 a story is recorded about a man named Manoah and his wife who happened to be barren. The angel of the LORD appeared to her and told her she’d become pregnant and give birth to a son. This wasn’t just any son, it would be Samson. You may be familiar with Samson and his story, but I want to focus on the interaction between the angel and Manoah. This angel was the same angel that appeared to Abraham, Moses, and Joshua. After the prophecy of a child had been given, Manoah asked the angel’s name so that they could give honor once the child was born. “Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding.” Ahhhhh. How often do we want to KNOW what God is doing. We ask WHY about so many things and often it seems the answer is elusive. Could it be that we are asking for knowledge beyond our ability to understand as opposed to God not giving an answer or even giving the answer ‘no’? Isaiah 55:8 reminds us we can’t even imagine what God is doing because his thoughts and ways are “higher” than ours and let me tell you I am thankful for this. There are so many times I would have NEVER been able to drag myself out of the muck and mire without God’s creativity and power. He has shown up right smack in the middle of messes in my marriage, in finances, in parenting and in all types of situations to remind me He alone is GOD. I have found when I replace my “why” with “I can’t see through this, but I praise you God because you can” my days run a bit more peacefully. Even when my eyes are searching for rescue that is playing the longest game of hide and seek in the history of ever!
My life doesn’t look like it did a year ago.
A little over a year ago I was successfully managing a class of kindergarteners, a situation that required a ton of energy and brain power out the whazoo. God had told me to “go” and so while I had no clue where he was leading I was excited about the possibilities. Before the final bell rang in May, my story started to “unravel”. (more detail in the Remembering series). While enough was going on externally to rock the sturdiest of ships, my health was about to take a turn that would keep me in a spiral of pain, profound fatigue, and a brain fog that is indescribable and has no cure. And that my friends is where I continue to be today. I’ve said many times that it could be so much worse, and it really could. Prolonged amount of time dealing with something that is way bigger than what you can control in your own power has the capacity to break you down. There are days I’ve spent in bed due to pain and exhaustion that lead to feelings of absolute worthlessness that I have to be very cautious of and filter through scripture and the truth held there. There is a super long laundry list that goes with this situation, and I can choose to stay caught up in the negative or I can look for Him. I’ll be honest, some days it feels like I’m searching through a fog so thick you could slice it. But this is life. We aren’t guaranteed anything, in fact Christ tells us in James 1:2 that trials WILL come.
I’ve learned to be more understanding.
I don’t know the why of what is going on, but I do know this. In this season, God is cultivating within me what is needed according to what he has purposed. There is a plan, even if I can’t see it on most days…but there ARE some things that are obvious to me. I’ve been told multiple times that people forget about how I’m feeling because on the outside I look fine. I’ve thought a lot about this and how we can function caught up in our own opinions and beliefs, and when someone does not follow suit with either of these, we have the tendency to condemn or judge. Whether it is how they drive, what they choose to wear, their level of engagment at social events, or their lack of volunteering… EVERYONE is living life from a different viewpoint. The car in front of you may not be purposefully going slow in an effort to make you late for work or just to irritate you and challenge your patience. Their back pain may be so severe that going super slow to avoid sudden jerks and bumps may be the best they can do while getting to the chiropractor for help. (Totally speaking from my own experience here. That person could have been me!) When you see someone in their pajamas in public, it may be that they’ve had a really rough day, week, or even year and their focus isn’t on what they have on. (Again, same chiropractor trip when because of the pain I didn’t realize I still had on my pajama top until I laid down on the table). We are all carrying more than what others can see, and so we should ALL be offering extra grace. God has allowed some really rough stuff to go on for over a year, but there is beauty in what I am learning through this winter season.
“Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
I know Spring will come again because my God is faithful. I know there will be fruit and that the winter season will end, and I will miss how reliant I am on His strength day to day. But in the meantime, I am trying to embrace all that God has for me in the resting and delighting in seeing His power. He called me out of my busy and successful career and active life into this season of rest and preparation, but He hasn’t left me here alone to live out the rest of my days. His glory and handprints are everywhere. He knows me better than I know myself. He knows my true color that gets hidden by the green in vibrant stages of my life, and He knows if I weren’t contained to a bed several days out of the month, I’d be pursuing alllll the things and not keeping his command to write in front of me. If my life hadn’t been altered, I may not have eyes that have grown to see beyond appearances the way I do now. There have been so many impossible things where God proved himself to be the only possible, so I’ve seen Him like no other time in my life. My inability to work in my own power has created a reliance like I’ve never known…but I’ve also seen His faithfulness magnified. Reasoning has become irrelevant when placed in the shadow of his perfect brilliance, creativity, goodness, and love. Winter on the surface can appear desolate, bleak and without life in many ways. I’m learning that with God it is quite the opposite if we let go of the ‘why’.
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