| When Our Season Changes © Ferna Lary Mills |
| Here in East Texas, we started having eighty degree temperatures in mid-March, and now that we are nearing the end of October, it's finally starting to feel a little more like something besides SUMMER. I had almost decided that we were moving towards having only two seasons these days: HOT and COLD. As the seasons finally begin to change, my thoughts wander to the many changes that happen in our lives, and how we change with each of these events. For instance, a young girl is forever changed when she marries. She is no longer single and carefree, but now is committed to caring for her husband. Later on, as children come into their lives, she is changed to a Mother and her life is filled with responsibilities to not only her husband, but her children. These are both major life changes and she is no longer the same person inside as that girl of her youth. Dealing with the death of a loved one is another major life change. Even more than the change from not knowing someone, to becoming their wife and raising their children, it is a major change going from being a couple to becoming a widow or widower. This seasonal change isn't a gradual event and usually happens in the blink of an eye. But, with every changing season of our life, WE are changed. We are not the same person in this season as we were in the last, nor will we be the same in the next. Oh, we may look the same on the outside until time begins to make changes of its own, but on the inside each season of our life changes us, whether we want it to or not. The girl who is now married and the mother of many may miss the carefree days of her youth and on occasion yearn for those days again, but she can never go back. She can never become that girl she "once was". Grief can make us yearn for the past, to the days when our loved one was with us and we felt whole. But just as that wife and mother may at times yearn for her youth, we can never turn back time and become who we were before our loss. It just won’t happen. As leaves fall from the trees with the changing season, we have to pick up the leaves and wait for the new season to reveal itself. We can't stop the changing of the season by picking up the leaves and trying to glue them back in place. With grief, we've lost more than our leaves. We've lost someone we loved very dearly. But since we can't bring them back, we have to wait for this new season of our life, this life without them, to reveal itself. Change happened, even while we were refusing to accept it. It happened, this life changing season called Grief. We can't turn back the time, we can't stop the hurt, and we can't make it go away. It happened, and as it happened, it changed us in ways we didn't want to change. So now what? Looking outside my window, I know I cannot change Mother Nature. I have no power to change the temperature or stop the cold wind blowing. The only thing I have the power to change … is me. I kind of liked the "summer" me and I’m not really ready for the "winter" me, but since I can't change the seasons, I CAN change ME by deciding how I want this change in my life to affect who I am. I can allow it to get the better of me and become bitter, or I can allow it to change me for the better, and seek blessings in every day I have left on this earth. Instead of scowling at the howling wind, I can rejoice that I have a coat. Instead of crying in the pouring rain, I can be thankful that I'm blessed with an umbrella. Instead of dying inside because my loved one is gone, I can rejoice that I am alive. Okay, I know that's not nearly as simple as it sounds. But if I'm still here, then there must be a reason and only God truly knows that reason. Just as fall follows summer, there is a time for every season. For reasons that only God knows, now is the time for my grief. In my heart of heart, I know there will come a time when it will be time for my Joy. I live in that hope and trust in Him to carry me through the darkness to a day when the light will again shine on my face, love will live again in my heart, and my Joy will be made complete. I trust in this because He promised, and He always keeps His promises. You see, God is the one and only thing that NEVER changes. Seasons change, times change, people change, things change, but God NEVER changes. He is the same God today as He was the first moment in time that he stepped out of the void and thought of you. And He will be the same every time you ever lift you eyes and think of Him. My prayer is that you, too, can find that very personal relationship with Him, so He can bring you Peace in your time of grief, just as He has done for me and so many others. May God bless you and bring you Peace. ~ |
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| A Christian Grief Ministry |
Life After Loss |
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