for a season for a reason for a time

I watched the fog roll over the fields, its heavy wetness bending the stalks at their tip and wrapping itself around my car, drawing in a deep breath I could feel the warmth of summer  mixed with the cooler air of fall fill my lungs, it was typical weather for this time of year, as summer gives way to autumn, the warm summer air fighting to hang on just a bit longer as the cooler air rolls in, the seasons are changing, as they do four times a year in my part of the country.  Eventually,  autumn will give way to winter, and winter to spring and spring to summer and summer to fall. Seasons change, they always do.

“Why should I take one when I am just going to have to give it back?” That is just stupid I thought to myself about the declaration of the man sitting in the pew behind me, he was nonchalant and unapologetic in what seemed to be a reasonable statement in a narrow perspective kind of way, refusing the small token gift the church was offering, because each person who took one will have to give it back at the end of the month.  From a human perspective I can understand his reasoning behind not taking the gift, yet it seemed like such a worldly cynical point of view. His remark led me to a new level of something that even as I write this I am not sure what that is, but I felt a restless anxiety stir inside of me, I felt sadness.  Sadness for a man who turned down a gift because he knew he wasn’t going be able to keep it so why take it to begin with? 

A few weeks ago I celebrated my 41^st birthday, the tenth anniversary of my father’s death and the one year mark since I started writing this blog, it was bitter and sweet all rolled together, I looked back on the journey God has taken my feet not just since I accepted Him as my Lord and Savior but also my journey over the past 41 years, it has been ever changing, ever evolving, but with each new place my feet have tread  God had been writing my story, through the many bad choices and the few good ones I made, through the mending of more than can I remember broken hearts, the despair of depression and the many gifts He has given and then asked me to give back, that has led me here, to this place I stand now.  I have ignored this blog for a good two weeks now, and I have been plucking away at this post for just as long as the fog of this new season envelopes me, clouding my vision as I settle in and make myself at home in this new season, knowing there is a reason, a purpose as to why He me put here, I look for the meaning of it in every step I take, every path that crosses mine, and every face I look into, knowing that this season too will come to end, eventually it be time to move on,  to give the gifts of this season back,  just like all the other seasons I have been through, but a lesson will be learned, blessings will be found and perhaps the opportunity to be a blessings to someone else.

I felt bad for this man that He could not see the potential of how big this small gift could be even it is for only a season, even if he has to give it back.   I can only imagine what this world would look like if we all refused the gifts God wanted to give us because the time may come when we will have to give it back, so why accept it to begin with?  How many blessings and opportunities to be a blessing we would miss out on because we refuse to accept a gift that was only meant to be ours for a season anyway.

 I was given a Cross necklace as a gift when I was baptized in August and I wear it almost every day, that tiny silver cross started a conversation about Jesus in an elevator, that tiny sliver cross that someone tried to give to me more than a year ago but I refused it because I didn’t like it, that gift of a silver cross that I first refused started a conversation in an elevator about Jesus almost a year later.  The day may come when He asks for my Cross back, to give to someone else, perhaps there are plans to use it to start a conversation in another elevator somewhere else, but it never really belonged to me anyway, it was a gift from God given to me through someone else, to use for season, for a reason, for a time.