Life seasons come and go.
That’s how God designed it to be. Just like the weather, life passes through seasons, each as different as spring is from fall or the dead of winter from the green of summer.
“For everything, there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT
The seasons of life first recognized are the division of young and old. As a child, to me, people were either my age or old. What determined old changed as I matured. Young became everyone still in school. Parents were old and anyone older than that – ancient.
Twenty is still young.
While in my twenties, I called my mother one morning. When she didn’t answer after the second attempt, I panicked. Since I lived out of state, I called the police. “She’s elderly and not answering the phone,” I told them. “Mom always answers the phone.” I was nearly hysterical by the time they called back to inform me that they found her. She was working the early shift at her place of employment. Relief mixed with a hint of aggravation washed over me. Mom didn’t need to be out and about before daylight! At the time, my elderly mother was around fifty-five years young.
Fifty-five isn’t near as old as it used to seem.
With sixty just a few years away for me, I can recall more seasons that I’ve experienced. There were the working years and the busy years. The tired years. The grieving ones.
Recently, I spent time reflecting on my past and uncovered a few more. I also discovered that each season was an extension or result of the one before. There was the season of over protection followed by the rebellious years. Thankfully, the coming around season found its way to me. The growing years came next, quickly followed by the extended occasion of listening to God speak.
If I had to name the period of life that I’m in now, it would be accepting the call.
Old isn’t a number.
If granted more time on this earth, I know there will be endless opportunities for life to take on a different look. I’m not ready for the years to speed ahead, but when I really am old (that age left to be determined), I want to be able to reflect once again on the many paths I’ve journeyed on. I’m not naïve to think that hurt won’t somehow play a part. However, I do hope periods of joy and peace will prove to have played out longer than the painful ones because I kept forefront in my mind that God made seasons to come and go.
“When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” I Cornithians 13:11-12 NLT
Grace Warrior Devotional Series