Changing Seasons

I noticed the arrival of a new season this afternoon.  Out here on the farm there is a love bug season so called because of the unabashed copulation of the black flitting bugs, horse fly season when they terrorize anyone walking in the wooded lane, and today with the appearance of lady bugs all over the west side of the porch, lady bug season has started.  On the farm seasons come and go and are known not by the names on the calendar, but as hay cutting season, pecan gathering season, and, of course, the best of all, spring gardening season soon to be initiated with the planting of seed potatoes on February 14.    

Seasons remind us that life has an order.  There are things about life that are predicatable.  Like the changing weather, they come and go each bringing us something that is unique to be experienced in the moment.  There are seasons of growth in our lives as surely as there is one which is a part of the cycle of creation.  There are seasons when life comes hard as is the case with too much rain and then summer drought.  To hang around here long enough is to experience some really satisfying times of seeing a crop come to harvest, but also there is the likelihood of difficult unpredictable times such as army worms showing up in a near ready hay field.    

If we are blessed with more than a few years, we are going to live through a lot of different seasons in our life.  Some of them touch our heart and some break it.  We are never really promised one or the other.  We are simply given life by the Creator who promises to be with us throughout the journey regardless of the seasons.  It is easy to rejoice and be thankful in the good ones and not so easy in the hard ones. But, the constant is the Creator.  Nothing is out of His control.  All of the creation is His.  It belongs to Him.  It all bears the imprint of His creative hands.  He cares for each and every part of it throughout its changing seasons.  And you and I are a part of that creation and always inside His care whether the season of the moment is easy or hard.  Thanks be to God.