Seasons

Seasons
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” - Ecclesiastes 3:1

 When I was just starting the ninth grade, right around this time of the year, I was forced to read a short story by James Hurst entitled “The Scarlet Ibis.” It is a sad, beautiful story, and it left little thirteen-year-old me devastated for days. It did not have a happy ending. But what also stuck with me was the beginning. The first sentence of the story is, “It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, when the ibis lit in the bleeding tree.” Although I didn’t understand it all then, that one sentence symbolized and foreshadowed what was to come in the story.
 
At the time, we were living in Indiana, where the seasons have somewhat clearer distinctions than they do here; but I had spent my first nine years in northeast Florida, so I was well aware of what that “clove of seasons” was like. We are there right now, here in South Alabama. As I write this on Sunday afternoon, we are in the waning hours of astronomical summer. Tomorrow, fall officially begins. It is predicted to be around ninety degrees tomorrow, with significant humidity. Summer is undeniably dead: Flowers are drooping. Days are shortening. School has long since begun, and those carefree days of swimming and playing and hanging out with friends are a distant memory for most children by now. And yet, obviously, as Hurst put it, autumn has not yet been born.
 
But it will be. We only need to be patient. What passes for fall here is not remotely like autumn in northwestern Indiana, or a number of other places, but we will know it when it comes, won’t we? The mornings will be cooler, the air will be drier, and mums and pumpkins will leave the Walmart Garden Center and the front of Allegri Farm Market and appear on people’s porches and around their mailboxes. The sweatshirts with “Thankful, Grateful, Blessed” emblazoned on them will appear, and the smell of pumpkin spice will emerge from…well…pretty much everywhere. In the meantime, we wait.
 
We have those times in our spiritual lives, as well. Times when something has ended, and we know something new is about to begin. These are the times when we wait upon the Lord. These are the times when we seek God’s face in prayer and trust Him for whatever may lie ahead. These are the times when he trains us in steadfastness and faith. I have often joked with people that they should not pray for patience. For if you do, God will surely offer you the opportunity to learn it. But the truth is that He will give us that opportunity anyway. It’s a natural and unavoidable aspect of the life of a believer.
 
But His word assures us that there is a season for everything, and a time for every matter. Even in the “cloves of seasons” in our lives, there is purpose in the waiting. He also exhorts us in Galatians not to grow weary in doing good, for in due season, we will reap. I love that. All things happen in God’s time to serve God’s will and to bring glory to Him. There will always be a harvest. Mr. Hurst’s story did not end well, but even in its heart-wrenching sadness, it was ultimately a story of love. This old world is just bad sometimes (my grandmother used to say that), but our God is good, and there is beauty to be found even in the most difficult times.
 
Don’t grow weary, friends. The harvest is coming.
 
Peace.
 
Jackie