Season in Season

Photo by Beth Macdonald on Unsplash

A Family Poem by Alexis Ragan

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens - Ecclesiastes 3:1

How does one cope with the shedding of leaves at the same time blossoms are being born from the ground? Or the tossing of turbulent winds overlapping a panorama of still skies? What about the clashing of snow met with the melting sun — what is to be done? When we are caught in between two seasons, we can rest assured there is a heaven-seen reason. Perhaps you are driving the wet roads of winter while your loved one is passing through the fields of spring. Or somewhere inside the household, the warm joy of summer is interlacing with the crisp melancholy of fall. Does this make sense at all? In the beginning, it will feel obscene. You may ask the Lord how a forecast this unheard of could even be. You might possibly try to pry yourself from the foreign climate in the hopes of preserving the season you are currently living in. For who desires their harvest to wither in a heat wave, or their rays to be blunted by the icy shade of an ambiguous cloud? Back to the reason. Just because there is another season interceding doesn’t mean it will not soon be on its way to leaving. In fact, somewhere along the journey of fluctuating temperatures there is a lesson needed. Sometimes, God permits all four seasons to circulate within a family simultaneously; it is here, we can choose to bear unpredictable weather with one another — this can be called season in season. You see, a sister having already passed through a certain storm will garner the necessary tools to lift another sister out of an avalanche, if that crisis comes. And a wife who has swum through an illness-filled tsunami will one day have the strength to help her husband surf the more bitter waves. Who knew? Seasons shared are not that strange after all.