A New Year

"For everything there is a season. . . "

This text from Ecclesiastes was the focus of Sunday's sermon.  Our youth pastor reminded us that there is never a day when everything is right for everyone. Christmas is always December 25, but death finds those we love, loneliness creeps its way into lives, addictions don't take a day off, even when you put the holiday on the calendar every year, for years and years.

But, the opposite is also true. Days that live in infamy like September 11, 2001, December 7, 1941, November 23, 1963. . . days that were too terrible to forget also recorded their share of joy. Somebody's child was born. Someone married. Sixteen year olds got their drivers' permits. Families were reconciled. A third grader learned her times tables. A biopsy came back negative.

Life is seasonal, and fortunately, our seasons rarely coincide with someone else's season. Kind of like at a funeral home where you hear random bursts of laughter. Sometimes the sadness is so overwhelming that without the cycling from tears to smiles our hearts and spirits would surely break.  And if we were all drunk with giddiness at the same time, I doubt if we would ever move forward, for often contentedness brings complacency.

In my own season of sadness, I found hope in seeing those who had made it to the other side, more or less, in one piece, often thankful for their own season of sadness. (I'm just glad they kept their thankfulness to themselves. Trust me, nobody wants to hear it until you're also on the other side.)

And in my seasons of joy, I find that I'm able to be present. . enjoying the goodness without too much fear as to the next season. Because finally I know, that God is in all seasons, that when I'm low there will be others in a different season that will keep me from the drowning in despair, that in my own spring I will care for those in the darkest part of winter.

Sometimes, it feels like my seasons drag on and on. Other days, I think I might go through the cycle a couple of times in an hour. I think the meaning of bittersweet is actually having a different foot in completely different seasons.

This life stuff is complex. My dog, Grace, refuses to do "seasons." She's prefers the Beatles to the Byrds. She chooses to just "let it be." She's much further along in her spiritual growth than most.