The seasons are changing! For me, that is a great big fat yay. I am not a massive fan of summer... I know, I can hear all the horrified gasps. I prefer winter. I feel the cold, but I love being able to be rugged up in a blanket or in front of the fireplace, listening to rain on the roof. It's soothing. As I have been doing the school run through the Barossa, the signs of the change of season are everywhere. Vintage is in full swing, the grapes are being picked, and the leaves are turning orange and yellow. Sadly someone has forgotten to tell the sun; it is 40 degrees outside. So with this, I have been thinking about seasons and the parallels between nature's seasons and the ones in our lives.
Just because it is vintage (harvest) for the grape growers doesn't mean it is harvest for the grain farmers. The grain farmers will be getting ready to sow in a month or so for harvest later in the year. So the first thing I have been thinking about is that we all go through our seasons differently at different times and at different speeds. My season for growth may coincide with someone else's season of pruning, and that is okay. We can't all be at the same place at the same time. Imagine if we were all at the same stage of development in both our lives and character at the same time. One of the most amazing things about the seasons that we go through is that we can use the things we learn in them to help other people when they are experiencing a similar season. Some of my most painful pruning times have had the most value in my life purely because I have been able to share what I have learnt with someone else.
Sometimes, it feels like your season is a waste of time. When you have big plans for what you want to do with your future, or big things that you want to achieve, but you feel like you are stuck in a repeating cycle going nowhere, it can feel like you are in a winter season with no end. Even in winter, grape vines have a dormancy cycle. This cycle has a significant effect in the Autumn yield. In my last blog, Let the Light in (link below) I talked about a season of my life where I was in darkness and lost, in what felt like an endless winter. No fruit, no sun, no light. In that season, I would have told you that God was nowhere, I would have told you God had forgotten about me, I would have told you God didn't care, but I can honestly tell you that in the winter, God was rebuilding foundations and strengthening roots in ways that would never have been able to happen in a carefree summer season. There are things I learnt in that season that go soul deep and things that I relearned while coming out of that season that challenged everything I thought I knew about myself and my faith.
My second favourite season is spring. It's new life, new growth, beautiful weather, lots of flowers, the trees are all green, and the weather is relatively mild. When you are in a spring season in life, everything is great, ministry is going well, work is good, kids are good, flowers are blooming, when you get home a little soundtrack plays announcing your arrival... well, not really, but in spring it feels a bit like everything you touch is gold. I know that for me, when I am in a spring-type season, instead of building on it and using it to store goodness away for a drier season, I tend to get a bit complacent. I forget to be as dependant on God as I am when things aren't going so well, and I forget to be thankful for the season. I still do all the things I normally do, but sometimes I can forget that I would have nothing without Him and, actually, I'm only in a spring season because of what He has done in me.
Throughout this blog, I have included some of my favourite seasons shots as a visual reminder that there are so many different seasons in life, from endless nappy changes, sleepless nights and school runs, to never ending work weeks, to empty nests, and new beginnings. In every season, there is something happening that we can't always see. There is always a purpose to it, even if you feel like you are just doing mundane things day in and day out. In every season you go through, watch out for other people in the same season: learn with them and grow with them. Support each other and reassure each other that there is purpose in all of it. Lookout for people who are a little further along in the journey than you are. There is no wisdom out there like the wisdom found in people who have moved through a season and learned from it.