Tis the Season

Have you stopped to consider your life lately? 

I have been obsessed with this considering. Thoughts consume me. Some positive and some negative. I am in a season of self-discovery. Of understanding more deeply than ever before who I am and trying for the life of me to figure out what to do with the remaining days of that life. 

My season is changing. My era of childrearing is over. The last of my 5 children graduated homeschool this year. Number 4 started college and my eldest has taken her beautiful little family on a grand adventure to another state. This combined with aging parents and living a very long distance from any of them has left my heart aching. It is true, I am aging. I thought I wouldn't mind but I do. I miss the previous seasons something fierce. So much regret and so much wasted time pursuing things that didn't matter. 

Having been in ministry for the majority of my adult life and the radical shift of no longer feeling like I am anymore (God is showing me differently). I often find myself resenting those years spent focused on other peoples kids, other peoples families, other peoples problems, living off next to nothing to serve others all the while storing up nothing for my later years. Thinking to myself that we poured out our lives for relationships that no longer exist, for people who have discarded us once we no longer served their purpose or once we became the ones in need of grace, leading and love. Missing so much of my family for others that no longer care. And then the Lord reminds me....

It was not for them. It was for Him. That my life has not been wasted for the sake of anyone. It's been given freely to the one who loves my soul.  That when I gave my life in surrender to Jesus, I chose to die to myself. I chose to obey and to love those he'd ask me to for his sake, not theirs and not mine. I continue to choose to lay down my life, my family, my desires and my future for Him. He is the greatest love I have ever known. 

My favorite Old Testament book is Ecclesiastes. Some people have grimaced in disbelief when I tell them that. The truth is, I have suffered from depression and anxiety as long as I can remember. It's actually one of the symptoms of a neurological condition that I have had my whole life. Ecclesiastes comforts me. It points me to the very truth that there is NOTHING new under the sun. That EVERYTHING is meaningless...besides God. And in this season that I am having a hard time embracing, He is comforting me once again.

Ecclesiastes 3 says:

 For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die. a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace. What gain has the worker from his toil I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made EVERYTHING beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil- THIS is God's gift to man....

When I cry about this season of change. He is reminding me to take pleasure in it. That there is truly a season to everything. That it's ok to mourn. It's ok to feel. It's ok to change. He has made everything beautiful in its time. 

And here is the art that He gave me to process through it all. I hope each picture from beginning stage to the final finished painting speaks to you the way it has to me. May you find healing in it no matter what season you find yourself in. 

The VOID

Here is a tree woman. I saw her in my mind. She is without a face because she is not only me, she is you. She has nothing to offer of her own. She is stretched to the heavens and rooted in the earth. Life is all around her but she is fruitless and alone, longing for spring to awaken her, searching for purpose, aching for life.

Discontentment

Do you see her face? This is a reflection of a season of grief, of loss, of not knowing. She is discontent with the seasons she has lived. She is discontent with the season she is in.  She is longing for something and nothing all at once. She is heavy. She knows something that she will not share. She thinks she has nothing left to give. She is wrong. Look at her branches. In the spring she is full of beauty. In the summer she is full of life. In the autumn she is struggling because she sees the winter approaching and she doesn't like it. She doesn't want it. Anger is in her eyes. Resentment in her bark. She cannot see her beauty.

Acceptance

Notice the branches? They are fuller than before. While filling out her autumn branches my heart broke and my eyes flooded. Acceptance means we cannot deny the truth. We embrace it. This life is short. This tree is full of life in every season. Spring is full of new life. Summer is wild and alive and passes far too quickly. In Alaska when autumn comes we dread it, for the winters are long and they are dark and they are hard and our only hope is the spring that follows and the promise that we will see summer again. But friends, in our lives we do not see spring or summer again. And so I cried knowing spring and summer have passed and autumn has begun. I don't cry for the long dark winter. I know my spring is eternal in the presence of Jesus. I cry for what lies ahead and what has already passed. I cry for the little ones who nursed at my breast who now have little ones of their own. I cry for the one who dried my wet feet as I got out of the bath tub and the one who taught me to get back up again when I fall off the horse. I cry for the years I took for granted and that the years ahead are so much shorter and filled with loss, I don't care to embrace. And yet. I must accept it. I must choose joy. I must fill the black hole inside my trunk with the peace that passes understanding and the Spirit that sustains me. 

And my friends this is a look into my soul. This is a look into the heart of God. There is nothing new under the sun. Everything will end. But God is eternal and so are we. I choose a human life that will lead to an eternal life with the lover of my soul. I choose Jesus.