A right time to hold on and another to let go...

After some B-E-A-utiful spring weather, we are trying not to complain about a blast of winter here in the heartland of America. BRRRRRR. Is spring springing or not? The tulips and daffodils and forsythia and magnolia are so lovely...but here in the season of spring that is just beginning (according to the calendar), we have a mini-season of winter. We know it will not, cannot last, but it is hard to endure anyway.

One of my favorite Sara Groves tunes, "Less Like Scars" goes like this:

It's been a hard year

But I'm climbing out of the rubble

These lessons are hard

Healing changes are subtle

But every day it's
Less like tearing, more like building

Less like captive, more like willing

Less like breakdown, more like surrender

Less like haunting, more like remember

(hear the whole tune at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lr9M-STe6c&feature=related )

It HAS been a very hard year. Thank the Lord, our family is doing well, but some other relationships that have been part of our lives FOR YEARS seem to have been ripped away from us. We are in a big transition and doing our share of floundering about, grieving, wondering why. I'm thankful that we are not going it alone. I'm thankful to have a new view that God is good and faithful all the time and that we humans are all fallible!

Jesus promises me that there is a time, a season for everything. What is a season? In my mind, it is a period of time with a beginning and an end. I am ready for this season to be over. Seems like we begin to see the end and some other crazy thing happens to drag out this 'Series of Unfortunate Events'!

What is my 'job' while we are in this season? Am I responsible at all for bringing about the conclusion of this difficult time? While thinking of and praying for a friend today I saw that my job is to obey today, to draw close to the Lord, be a seeker of Him, to allow myself to gratefully be in process. His job is to deliver me from this 'captivity' (Jeremiah 29:13, 14). His job is to bring to completion the work He has started in me (Philippians 1:6).

It is a mini-winter season - it had a beginning, it will have an end - hopefully in the not too distant future. Signs of spring are showing, but we may have to endure some intermittent chill before winter is finally a season of the past.