Seasons of Life

By Rod Hemphill

Well, the daffodils are standing straight and tall like little soldiers in full dress uniform. There they are -a clump here and there like sentries at the gates, or over there by the hundreds, even thousands, on parade. They stand there as the harbinger of Spring and its newness of life. They remind us that the opportunity to begin again has been given to us, and remind us to anticipate this year as adventure!

What this year turns out to be depends in large measure on what we determine today we're going to look for in it. If we choose no expectancies, set no goals to be accomplished, the year 2007 will slip by quietly into the doldrums of mere existence as perhaps too many of our years have been allowed to do, and when we get into our later years, we'll wonder if our lives had any meaning, any accomplishments, and where all those years went.

But if we can't retrieve and do over the lost opportunities of the past, neither do we live in the past. We live in the present with the promise that we can anticipate the future and fill it with things that feed the soul.

"Feed our souls" -it's in anticipation of future blossoming that we make plans now, set goals now, plant the gardens of our lives now, cultivate the visions and dreams of our lives now, and this anticipation feeds our souls now!

It's both the remembrance of what we have accomplished and the expectation of what shall be that gives us fulfillment and the hope which pulls us through the dry seasons, through the gradual shutting down and slipping away of treasured moments and relationships which were given to us only for a season -ours to enjoy only until their Summer has run its course and the Autumn bids us let them go.

All things run to Autumn, but Autumn has its own glories, missed by those who find meaning only in the urgent energies of Spring or the comfortable warmth of Summer. In regretting the passing of the glories of the past, they miss the new colors of Fall -the maturity of that which had been born in the Spring, and the possibilities not available in previous seasons. They only see Winter approaching -cold, stark, lifeless.

But Winter is not lifeless! With the arrival of the first real snow, the snow-birds and cardinals, the squirrels and chipmunks all gather around the feeder and perch in the bushes, and it looks like a living Christmas card.

And under the bark, the tree is still green, secure in the fact that since the beginning of time, Winter too has run its course and Spring has returned to herald another year -a new year! While the bulbs are dormant in the ground, they are full of energy waiting to be released when the warm days of Spring call them to emerge and turn their faces to the sun. While the bear hibernates, her cubs are born in the certainty that new adventures, new experiences, new life awaits.

And then, as though a mighty drama is about to unfold, the March thunderheads light up the darkened sky with awesome lightning and thunderous drum rolls, and look -here come the daffodils on parade again! And it's time to discover all the newness that belongs to this new year, and the adventures that we were unable to experience before because they belong to this new season of our lives.

And we leave the Winter of our lives remembering what all we planted last year, finding excitement in discovering that first daffodil breaking through the ground and the bluebirds returning to their birdhouses, and we lift the moist earth in our hands and plan how we shall plant the seeds of new experiences, new joys, new accomplishments -because we are not people who live in seasons past, nor whose whole life is endless frozen Winter. We live in the present, making the most of every moment, envisioning the future -always standing on tip-toe to see into the next day, the next season, the next thing that will delight our souls!

It's your life.
May it be more than existence. Rocks exist.
May it be adventure! May it be life!
It's your choice.

Rod

Other Articles by Rod:
Refiner's Fire
The "Holy" Bible? Who Says So?
We Can Pray Specifically
How and Why We Can Afford to Give Disbelievers Their "Best Shot"

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