Seasons.

I love seasons. I love the anticipation of change and the excitement of what is to come. I love looking forward to days of summer sun and tanned skin, to the crisp air of autumn and the turn of leaves in their color, to the celebrations of winter and the reasons we gather inside, to the newness of spring and the fields blanketed with wildflowers. Yet, I often find myself hesitant to accept seasons of change within my life. Instead of anticipation and excitement, I am filled with fear and dread of what is to come. I am crippled by the unknown and stuck in a trap of comfort which threatens growth, keeping me stagnant, frozen.
What would happen if I embraced the constant change of seasons within my life as I did the seasons of the calendar? What freedom would I discover in choosing to anticipate good, beautiful, and unique things only found in specific seasons? Would I not know, more fully, happiness and laughter if I embraced the sadness and depression? Would I not walk willingly through open doors if I truly examined the ones closed behind me? Would I find beauty in both the pain and the joy, the sickness and the health, the need and the satisfied? More importantly, would my embracing these seasons grant me the empathy and willingness to step into the seasons of others? And not just step into them but enter them with expectation and appreciation.
Father, teach us the secret of being content in any and every season, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in need. And, Father, help us in looking not only to our situations but to enter and embrace the seasons of others. May we be more like Jesus each day and assume the posture of a servant.
Amen.