Over the past years I have commented more than once at how much I love watching the changing of the seasons during our time at the lake. We live every weekend at a small lake, about an hour from where we live, from May 1st through early October. I can hardly believe this is our forth season here already.
Every year we somehow get through the dead of those midwest winters. Through the below zero temps, through the feet of snow that falls and needs to be cleared over and over and over again. Through the endless days on end of no sunshine and the months and months of just going through the motions of surviving the days until spring again starts to awaken.
We eagerly pack the car and head to the lake at the end of April. Sometimes there is still a little snow along the cool shadows of the ditches. The fields are dry and brown, the soil a flat, lifeless charcoal grey. The melted snow is swelling in the local little creeks, the wildlife are slowly beginning to again emerge.
A few weeks later as we continue our weekly weekend travels there for the season, we start to see the fields turn into plowed rich black soil, and then neat rows where precious seeds have been planted deep within the rich earth. A few weeks later and there is the faint pop of green in all those rows as the fields slowly begin to grow.
The months that follow are filled with those little green shoots bending, and pulling, and reaching for the sky. They lengthen, and grow, and bloom, and gain life, and are soon entire fields of swaying rich green, basking in the heat from the summer sun and soaking in the drops from the summer dew and rain.
Slowly weeks turn into months and almost like magic, one day there’s a slight change in the air. A slight chill whispering in the breeze, and suddenly, that vibrant sea of green slowly begins to fade. It fades into a lemon yellow and then a slow wrinkling and withering to a dry and crinkly light brown.
The once full fields suddenly show lines of harvest, storms of husk and leaf dust hovering throughout the fields and gravel roads. Another year, another progression of the passing of time, the changing of the season, the harvest of another years time, toil, and bounty.
Every weekend I’m always sure to watch the fields, watch the growth, witness the change, remain consciously aware of that which is changing and revolving around me. And every year I find myself thinking about this evolution of grown and rest.
Last night as I drove to the lake through the falling, darkening, dusk sky, quiet classical music streaming throughout the car, I saw more flood waters filling ditches and fields and overflowing water ways. I saw partially harvested fields. I saw utterly damaged fields that did not weather well to the summer growing conditions of this year. Some yields will come out bountiful and strong, others not so much. Sometimes only feet away from each other.
Soon all the fields will again be empty, barren, and breathing slowly as they enter their next season of rest. They will get tilled and turned one last time for the year, and then left to sleep, to rest, to endure the cold stagnation of yet another midwest winter. They will lie silent and dormant, holding on to their hopes and dreams for another fertile and productive year next summer. If this was a summer of disaster and disappointment from their yeild, it is their time to hope and pray for restored bounty next time. If this was a summer of blessing and grace from their yield, it is there time to rest, give thanks, recoup, and humbly pray for either another returned bounty next summer, or for the grace and humility needed to endure a season of hardship and difficulty that might be on it’s way next time around.
This change, this progression, this dull to vibrant, back to dull, is so much like my life… our lives. It’s the perfect example of the ebb and flow of growth and rest. We cannot be all things, at all times, for all people. The world tells us we can, the world tells us we should, and we need to. The lies in our head tell us we are failures and unworthy because we can’t, and we honestly really don’t even want to, but somehow... we still end up caught in the endless hamster wheel of expectation.
We too have seasons... seasons we need to rest, and wait, and be ok with being a little dull, and a little unused and a little off in the background. And then there are the seasons of our vibrancy, our growth, our producing, and flourishing, when we are able to give and give and give and help provide needed life and nutrients to those around us.
We are not in control of the storms and the conditions of our lives. We can prep and plan and hope and pray, but ultimately we do not get to pick the rain, the sun, the temps, the growing conditions that inevitably touch us, influence us, and effect those around us.
Life is not a given. Bounty and great harvest is not to be an expectation.
We never quite know when our seasons will be full, and grand, and perhaps even a plethora, a bumper crop of outpouring and unexplainable abundance and blessing. Oh how we must not take those seasons, those moments, those harvests for granted. These are not a given, these are not to be just flippantly expected. These are to be valued and treasured and recognized. These are to be times of humble thanksgiving and extravagant giving and outpouring to those around us.
We also all know there will also be those unexpected seasons of heartache, of drought, of great flood, of unexplainable heartache and disappointment one after another. The seasons when we expect, and pray for hope, and growth, and abundance, but we just are not granted that luxury, when those prayers are not answered, when that plea seems to fall on deaf ears.
It’s when we find ourselves in this season of hardship that we can learn the beauty of how it works to rely on those still growing and flourishing around us, when we need to perhaps let them be the ones to provide and nourish both us as individuals, as well as those whom are depending upon us for those tasks of responsiliby, at least for the season at hand.
Whether you are currently in a field producing a crop of grand harvest , or a field that has been struck by the unexplainable, unchangeable season of heartache, know you are not alone. I believe we are all created ultimately to see each other and help each other through all things.
Our lives are all an endless evolution of growth and rest, of blessing and burdens, of growth and stagnation, of vibrancy and dullness. We need to see, to reach out, to touch, to connect, to give, to receive, to ask, to accept, to interact with love and joy with everyone. Whether we are inherently introvert or extrovert, we are all ultimately living a life designed to best function as a team, as a whole of many parts, not just as lone individuals on our own.
We’re all weathering the storms and the abundant blessings of our lives. We are all growing, and changing, and aging. We are all cycling through life, just like the fields of crops planted year after year after year, being planted, budding, growing, being fed and nutured, being harvested, being repeated over and over again. Watch and be aware of all that's around you. Soak in the colors and sounds and smells of the world around you.
We never quite know when our seasons will be full, and grand, and perhaps even a plethora, a bumper crop of outpouring and unexplainable abundance and blessing. Oh how we must not take those seasons, those moments, those harvests for granted. These are not a given, these are not to be just flippantly expected. These are to be valued and treasured and recognized. These are to be times of humble thanksgiving and extravagant giving and outpouring to those around us.
We also all know there will also be those unexpected seasons of heartache, of drought, of great flood, of unexplainable heartache and disappointment one after another. The seasons when we expect, and pray for hope, and growth, and abundance, but we just are not granted that luxury, when those prayers are not answered, when that plea seems to fall on deaf ears.
It’s when we find ourselves in this season of hardship that we can learn the beauty of how it works to rely on those still growing and flourishing around us, when we need to perhaps let them be the ones to provide and nourish both us as individuals, as well as those whom are depending upon us for those tasks of responsiliby, at least for the season at hand.
Whether you are currently in a field producing a crop of grand harvest , or a field that has been struck by the unexplainable, unchangeable season of heartache, know you are not alone. I believe we are all created ultimately to see each other and help each other through all things.
Our lives are all an endless evolution of growth and rest, of blessing and burdens, of growth and stagnation, of vibrancy and dullness. We need to see, to reach out, to touch, to connect, to give, to receive, to ask, to accept, to interact with love and joy with everyone. Whether we are inherently introvert or extrovert, we are all ultimately living a life designed to best function as a team, as a whole of many parts, not just as lone individuals on our own.
We’re all weathering the storms and the abundant blessings of our lives. We are all growing, and changing, and aging. We are all cycling through life, just like the fields of crops planted year after year after year, being planted, budding, growing, being fed and nutured, being harvested, being repeated over and over again. Watch and be aware of all that's around you. Soak in the colors and sounds and smells of the world around you.
Be grateful, be giving, be humble. Grow, rest, repeat.
No comments:
Post a Comment