#change

Embracing Change: Understanding Life’s Seasons

~ authorlasharnda ~ Leave a comment

There is a rhythm built into everything God made. Winter gives way to spring. Night surrenders to morning. The tide pulls back so it can rush forward again. Nothing in creation stays the same forever, and if we are honest with ourselves, neither do we.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us that “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” We accept this truth easily when we are talking about weather or calendars. It is harder to accept when the season that is ending involves a person, a role, a relationship, or a version of ourselves we have grown comfortable holding on to.

Woman standing on a leaf-covered forest trail in autumn

Sometimes we hold on to a friendship that stopped being mutual years ago. Sometimes it is a job that no longer stretches us or a title we have outgrown. Sometimes it is a relationship that quietly stopped nourishing us and started draining us instead. We keep holding on anyway, not because it is still good for us, but because letting go feels like loss, and loss is uncomfortable.

But here is what I have come to understand: holding on past the season God intended is not loyalty. It is often fear dressed up as faithfulness.

People, like things, come and go. That is not a cold truth. It is actually a merciful one, because it means God is always making room for what is next.

Isaiah 43:19 says, “Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.” God cannot do a new thing in a life that refuses to release the old one. Our hands can only hold so much. If they are clenched around something we should have let go long ago, they are not open to receive what God has next.

This is not permission to abandon commitments or walk away from hard but necessary relationships. Discernment matters here. But there is a difference between a hard season worth pressing through and a closed season we are refusing to close. One requires endurance. The other requires obedience.

If you are holding on to something or someone who may be holding you back, I want to gently ask you today: what is it costing you to keep holding on? What could God be waiting to give you once your hands are finally empty enough to receive it?

Letting go is not losing. It is trusting that the God who authored the last season is trustworthy enough to author the next one.

Seasons come and go because they are supposed to. Let them.

~Dr. LaSharnda

Seasons Change…

~ authorlasharnda ~ Leave a comment

seasonsI have always said that we go through seasons. Just like the earth goes through winter, spring, summer, and fall, we too, go through times of cold, harsh winters, awaiting a change in the season. We look forward to and pray for the refreshing warmth of the spring. We sit and watch the leaves turn green on the big, old trees that were murky and gray during those cold winter months.

I used to sit in my family room in Texas with its many large windows, looking out at the abundance of trees in my back yard. I can remember vividly, watching the green leaves on the trees during the warmer months and I recall being in awe when I would notice how all of a sudden, the limbs were bare again. I would go through months sitting in that room each day, reading my Bible and journaling my prayers, and looking up at the trees for inspiration. All of a sudden, one day I would look up to notice tiny little green buds starting to appear on those big, gray limbs. Even the limbs looked to have turned brown again.

I share this visual because of those trees. For some reason, they have always reminded me of life and the goodness of God. If nothing else, take one thing away from this reading today, if you are going through some challenges that you feel is overwhelming, if you don’t understand the difficulty you are dealing with, if you are at a loss as to how you got to where you are right now, remember this, trouble won’t last always and joy comes in the morning, is what the Bible says in Psalms 30:5 and 1 Peter 5:10. Just like the seasons that occur on the earth, we experience seasons of drought and times of prosperity. We experience times of isolation and coldness, and we will experience joy and a sense of being if we look for those opportunities.

I know it is easy to lose hope when you are going through stuff. Don’t. Do as David in the Old Testament did, he encouraged himself in the Lord. I am not saying that it is easy to deal with hard times; of course, it is not. However, I will tell you that it is easier if you trust in Jesus.

Listen, seasons change, but God remains the same. In fact, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. You can believe that God remains faithful.