Changing Seasons

Remember the Polar Vortex? The sub-zero temperatures. The bitter blustery winds. I remember all too well. We had the bright idea to get a 12 week old puppy just days before the onset of it all. 

It was a long winter. A very long and unpredictable season. Uncharacteristic for Virginia. 

We complained, we grumbled, we griped. We hated the cold. We were tired of the snow. We couldn't handle One. More. Snow. Day. Spring couldn't come soon enough. 

Now we're experiencing the Pollen Vortex. Some say it is a direct effect of the harsh winter. Allergy sufferers everywhere don't have to be warned. They're experiencing the full-blown effects of every budding and blooming speck of dust wafting through the air and being inhaled, much to their detriment. 

Have we already begun hoping for the dry, hot, humid summer yet? 

I dare say we could understand this statement more having experienced such unpredictable seasons. Evenso, as Virginians, we've come to understand a certain order. We can know with hope that come June, July and August we'll be sweating in sweltering heat, with full assurance that by October our trees will turn colors and we'll wake up to brisk autumn mornings. There is a certain order to it that we can expect, even when it's at its most unpredictable state. 

In our seasons of life we have this head knowledge that "this too shall pass" and yet in that present moment, it seems all we can do to get through. It can feel as though it will never pass. We can sense that it's always darkest before the dawn, yet we wonder if the light will ever truly break through.

"Though He causes grief, He will show compassion. So great is His unfailing love." Lamentations 3:32

It is but a season. A temporal, impermanent period of time. The problem with time and changing seasons is we somehow think we can control - or predict - what it should do. Who can tell the winds to obey? I know it's certainly not I, yet how often do I find myself shouting out commands for the storm to blow over? Oh yes, I am guilty of this. 

Timing is God's perogative. Timing is His choosing. The season may last because we prematurely think we've already endured. Only He can decide this. Only He tells the wind and seas to obey and they listen. Only He directs the steps and order of time and season. The more we try to control and impact its presence in our lives, the more we should come to understand how utterly out of control we truly are. 

The seasons do change. As do the circumstances in our lives. But only when an Eternal Sovereign God says so. And until He does, we rest in His presence, finding His mercies new each morning, despite the forecast.