Seasons Change

At the beginning of December, an amazing thing happened.  It snowed!  In Mississippi!  Snow flurries happen close to never here, so the four or five inches were such a happy surprise.  My favorite tree at our house sparkled in the white, fluffy dust.  The kids rejoiced that there was no school; we frolicked in the snow, made snow ice cream that apparently only I like (who are these kids?!), drank hot chocolate, crafted snow angels, the works.  The day could not be beat.  My eye kept going back to my tree, though. 

When the leaves begin to change in September…..errr…..November, this pretty thing turns the most vibrant hue.  Orange-red and flanked with her tire swing, she is just a dream.  By the early December day of our snow, she was not entirely done shedding her leaves, so here she was covered in the white stuff, but the bottom branches were still blazing orange.  Oh, it was SO pretty!

It began to be a little unsettling to me, though, when I thought about how she was enjoying her crisp autumn season and then BAM! Winter hit her.  I couldn’t help but think about how that doesn’t happen only to the trees.  So many times we are right in a season of life that seems to match our age, our peer group, our desires, but out of nowhere and with no fair warning, we are cut off from that season and thrust into a new alternate season that we weren’t ready for and that really doesn’t match where we should be.  A new season begins before the other one ever really had a chance to come to fruition; a spouse dies much too young, a child dies before a parent, cancer is diagnosed, a job is lost, divorce ensues, infertility cripples, so many things can break us out of our season.

My brother was a pilot in the Navy.  Our dad was a fighter pilot, and it was my brother’s dream for as long as I can remember to follow in those footsteps.  “Top Gun” was a bit of a fixture in my life growing up, and I can still recite it word for word if you need me to – important trait right there.  My brother showed me the hard work it took to reach for your dreams, and I looked on as he so diligently achieved them.  He was 34 years old, pilot in the Navy, wife and new baby, prime of his life, and he woke up one day in the midst of a stroke.  It was devastating.  Details aside, the gist of it is that he was slammed into a new season of his life without ever getting to finish the previous.  There was no medical explanation for the stroke, but he was grounded, never to fly again.

He went through all of the raw emotions you would imagine, and probably a whole lot more than I know about, on top of all of the physical ailments.  He had to walk with a cane, couldn’t move his arm, slurred speech, etc., and he could never fly again.  He was in bad shape.  Nearly ten years later, though, you would never know he’s had a stroke.  He is fully recovered, competing in triathlons, he is still in the Navy in a different capacity, his faith is strong, and he can tell you about how God used that stroke for his good and for his family’s good.  It wasn’t easy, and I’m sure it still isn’t easy, but God is being glorified because of what he went through.  And isn’t that really what it’s all about?

Life moves on, seasons change, and all those other tired clichés, but let me tell you one thing that stays constant:  OUR GOD!  He will always be, and should always be, glorified.

Why do we have to suffer, though?  What is the purpose of our suffering?  Isn’t God sovereign and good – can’t He just take it easy on us?  Those are some hard questions to answer, but the truth of the matter is that we are in no position to ever begin to fully understand God.  We are also not ever in a position to question Him.  Suffering can come because of sin entering the world all of those years ago.  Where there is sin, there will be suffering, and sometimes the wake of that sin reaches out beyond the periphery of the sinner and impacts others.  Let us not forget, though, that there are no truly good people, and that because of the sin in our own lives, we deserve death.  So, that whole “why do bad things happen to good people” thing doesn’t really hold water because there are no “good” people.  We can also be subject to suffering because God allows it in our life to bring us back to Him, or to bring someone else back to Him.

He may use our suffering for someone that we never even meet or for some purpose that we have no clue about.  Look at the cupbearer that was in prison with Joseph in Genesis 40.  He was thrown in prison for a brief time because he offended the Pharaoh, and while he was there, he talked to Joseph about a dream.   Two years later he would remember that moment when Pharaoh was telling him about his own troublesome dream.  Joseph, released from prison, interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams and became his right-hand man.  Look at what God did for Joseph through the cupbearer’s suffering!  Sometimes our season change is for someone else entirely.

We will never be able to determine why God allows us to suffer.  Let us not ever assume that God wants to punish us.  His promise in Romans 8:28 tells us that He wants all things to work for our good!  Take a deep sigh of relief at that!  And then pull up your bootstraps and trudge through the struggles for another few feet before you need reminding of His promises again.  That’s what He wants of us ultimately – a relationship where we rely completely and utterly on Him to get us through all that life plunges us into.  He wants to be our comfort, our joy, and our peace.  He is way more competent at that than any other we could seek.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.  ROMANS 8:28 (ESV)

That tree in my yard was freezing its leaves off out there under the weight of that frigid snow, but my, how she shone to the outside world!  God can use us even in our suffering to be a lamp of His light to other people.  Even in our suffering, we can still point others to the cross.  We just have to prepare our lives for the moment when we might have to shine the brightest.