Not only are the seasons going to start shifting from Summer to Autumn in the next couple of months, the season of my life is going to shift change completely within the next year. One year. Give or take 365 days and my life will be totally different. I’m graduating college in May.
Wow.
The funny thing about seasons is that some are cold, while others are warm. Reflecting on my life until this point, the metaphor makes perfect sense. Some weeks, months, years have been glorious. Filled with laughter and warmth and love and a strong sense of contentment in my heart. Others, however, have been trying and difficult and chilly. And then there have been the seasons, like Spring and Autumn, that have been both warm and cold, beautiful and difficult. The only consistency through it all? Jesus.
He’s held my heart and my hand through it all. Even when I couldn’t see Him at the time, I look back with tears in my eyes as I recognize His presence through every single season, all 20 years, 8 months, and 12 days.
Like when I woke up in the middle of the night in January of 2011, extremely ill with mononucleosis, with a hurting heart and the strong and pressured feeling that I needed to become a camp counselor in the summer. How I listened to the whisper reluctantly, and moved to Texas, where I found pieces of my soul that had been buried for years. I came home after 14 weeks a different person–and it’s all because of His guidance.
Or more recently, when I said good-bye to friends and family with tears streaming down my face and moved to Spain for five months. How difficult it was adjusting and what serious culture shock I went through, how many times I wondered why I was there, what was the point of it all? How even as I boarded the plane back to the states, I still didn’t know why I was put through such a storm. And most of all how I can now look back on my time abroad with a grateful heart–for the beauty and the difficulty, because I learned and grew more than I would have had my experience been peachy-keen.
And so I look to this upcoming year, my last year of college, my last first day of school, with joy and expectation. Because the Lord has great plans for me. Because He’s never left me before. And because He knows a lot more of what I’m capable of than I do.
I don’t have to “figure out what I’m meant to do” because He already has. He’s known forever. I just have to follow Him and I’ll be led. That is a beautiful thing.
Here is an amazing song that we sang in church today, a manifesto proclaiming God’s perfect provision in every single season.
The Desert Song by Hillsong United
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
-Jeremiah 29:11-
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