I’m incredibly grateful to find my words over at (in)courage today. You know when sometimes your own words end up encouraging you? I think that’s what just happened.
I’m in the busiest season I’ve ever experienced and I’m struggling to finish everything by all their respective deadlines, while maintaining that people and relationships are always most important.
So today, as I turn in a 12 page paper and a 6 page cover story for a magazine, as I run to an interview and then begin working on the other 4 papers, test, and presentation that are all due next week…I’m going to stop for just a moment and count the joys.
There are so many.
I will be thankful for this season, because it’s simply that: a season. Even in all the busyness, it’s a beautiful season. I’ve spent four years praying the same thing, living with a heart broken by community, and I’m beginning to see signs of Spring.
Don’t get lost in Winter, friends. He promises there will always be a new season.
{photo by my super talented friend}
I’d be willing to bet you’ve experienced some deep, hard things. Moments that can’t be erased and memories that still haunt. Life change happened, whether you wanted it to or not.
But for all the struggles and questions and hard times, there is a joy.
It might have slipped you by, unnoticed in all the chaos, but I pray you found it.
On the other side of every trial is unending joy that will light up every dark place. As the beauty of changing leaves shifts to a season of grey and white, I’m struck by how empty the world feels, void of color.
It all seems so looming, the changing of the season. There are certain days on the calendar that signal change, and as the temperature drops and the leaves fall I know one season is about to fade into the next. Thanksgiving is around the corner and I’m reminding myself of one simple word that changes everything:
eucharisteo
I will be thankful.
I will remember His goodness.
I will look for the light of Spring when Winter seems long.
I will be thanks-giving, counting it a joy as I jump in the Fall leaves and drink way too many pumpkin spice frappuchinos at Starbucks – because life is short and all is a gift, no matter the season.
I don’t want to miss the gift of now by looking too far into the future. The present is a present, a gift waiting to be unwrapped.
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