Accepting Your Season
In Minnesota, Spring came unacceptably late this year. Winter was like an odor in the walls which we couldn't get rid of, and it evoked a kind of rage normally reserved for axe murderers and politicians. None of us wanted to accept it. We Minnesotans are hardy and proud about the bone chilling, below zero days in January and February. In March, we laugh at Winter as it dumps inch after inch of snow on us, dusting off our flip flops and anxiously awaiting that first 50 degree day, where we'll unveil our unsightly toes with pride and glee.But it snowed in April. And May (which I believe is illegal in most states). So we just kept trudging through it, angrily snapping our overused ice scrapers over our knees, while mumbling through our scarves about God's wrath and global warming gone horribly wrong.We human beings have a hard time accepting the season in which we find ourselves, unless it's 72 and sunny. We don't like being out of control, and we don't like it when things don't go as they should. We don't like being pruned, and we don't like failure.We prefer to see fruit on the trees of our lives, all the time.But not all of life can be successful and fruitful. Sometimes we need to accept a season of pruning, defeats, and lessons learned the hard way.What season of life are you in right now? Instead of fighting it, what might it look like to lean into it?I recently made a difficult decision that has yet to work itself all out, but it seems to have been the wrong one. And it's been costly. And all my usual questions have shown up - what if and why not and if only - and none those questions have helped. They have only swirled around me like an April snowstorm, piling more and more unwanted weight on ground that is already covered.What if, right now, my season is one of pruning, of learning, and of leaning into the hard stuff? It sounds very sexy and spiritual formation-y to say that, but it's so unbelievably, gut wrenchingly difficult, because I honestly just want it to be sunny again. It's a battle to lean into a season of pruning so that more health, more life, more growth, can come... at some undetermined season in the future, which is coming much, much later than I'd hoped it would come.Here's what is helping me, as I mumble through my proverbial scarf, and trudge through this difficult season:
- I am trying to ask, "God, what do you have for me, even in this?"
- I am trying to spend as much time as possible with nourishing and life giving friends.
- I am trying to make small choices which feel purposeful, which remind me that not everything is just happening to me in this season.
What season are you in right now? How can you lean into it and learn from it, as hard as it may be?