Tis the Season

Sitting at a traffic light, on a warm spring day, suddenly the strangest thought comes to me. “You can’t build a snowman in the summer”. From past experiences, I understood that this peculiar phrase was God trying to teach me something that I was apparently oblivious to in my life. It was God saying that what He asked must be done during its season, once the season has passed, it will be too late to begin. It has been five years since I heard that word from God. Today, as I look out my window into the glimmering snow covering the ground, I was reminded of it once again--on New Year’s Day.

This comes back to me at a time when life has become so perplexing, shifting in a direction I never would have anticipated it going. It has been two months since I announced that I would be stepping down from ministry after serving over 12 years.  I had worked so hard to obtain my credentials and figured by this point in my life, with my children grown, I would be ready to write and preach whenever I felt the leading of God. My husband and I were finally comfortable with our lives. He had a good job and made a decent income, and I was able to do independent work that allowed me time to do the ministry that I had loved.

However, the life I had imagined soon vanished like a taunting mirage during the battle to free my child from addiction. In and out of rehabs, prisons and courtrooms, leaving me faint from the weeping prayers that carried us through each step of the journey. The beautiful child that he left for me to raise I understood was a symbol of God’s magnificent grace. She would be the joy that would strengthen me to stand when everything in me wanted to lie down and surrender.  The financial strain of it all was just beginning to swallow us when they announced my husband’s work was closing its doors. The inconsistent self-employment work that had once been a means of a second income is now all that we have to carry the heavy burden. As we ended the last week of our health insurance, I was diagnosed with health issues that will remain untreated. Those closest to me, who had once been my support have left our side leaving us to face the battle alone. As this whirlwind of chaos subsides, all is stripped away. I look around and realize all the snow in my life has melted. As I frantically try to build another snowman, the water runs through my fingers evaporating in the dry dirt beneath.  

Ecclesiastes 3:1 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens”

As I continue to stare out the window and think of the word God placed in my heart, I realize something that until now, I had missed. The snow will come and go, but His word is present always. I had built all of my confidence not in God but in the ministry, in the finances, in the family, in the friendships, in the church, in my health, my accomplishments and that of my children. I defined by success and/or failure on the snowman that I was capable of building for myself. When the sun warmed up the earth and all of the snow melted away, what did I have to define me? Nothing!

 I will build again.  Maybe this is the season for me to lose it all…a time to tear down.  A time for me to examine the places and purpose for which I was building. I know that the season will come again as His Word clearly says that there is a time to build.  This time, I will be sure to follow the lead of the Chief Builder and build upon His solid foundation.  For it is He that has made everything beautiful in its time. Not in my timing.