We've reached my favorite time of year. Fall just completely rocks! We all know when it's coming--there's just an electric change in the air. The signs are all around us: Days begin getting shorter, nights colder, and we have a few fantastically awesome thunderstorms. Then before you know it, there are mums and pumpkins on everybody's door step and specialty spiced cider drinks being featured at your favorite coffee shop. You can always tell when fall is coming, and I love it!
I have another way to know that fall is coming: My eyelashes all fall out. Really. As far back as I can remember, my body does this weird thing where it doesn't get rid of my eyelashes one at a time. No, no...my eyelashes all let go together, usually in the course of a couple of days. I'll wake up in the morning with lashes all over my pillow. I'll reach up to itch my eye, and pull my hand back to discover four lashes came back with it. Is this weird?
I've tried to find some rhyme or reason to the cycle of lash letting, and the best I can tell, it always happens with the change of the seasons. I always know when summer or winter REALLY HAS ended, because I walk around with bald eyelids.
I am so grateful that I serve a God of seasons. This is such a gift! I'm not just talking about the earthly seasons that we experience through the year which are marked by a change in weather, although they ARE pretty sweet. I'm talking about spiritual seasons. Scripture tells us that "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 3:1) In all things, God gives us just what we need, just as much as we need, and for just as long as we need. We don't go through the tough stuff ALL the time, lest we buckle under despair, forget how to laugh, forget to enjoy the gift of life God has given us. We don't get the good stuff ALL the time, lest we grow complacent and take it for granted, never growing. Just for a season. That's all God asks.
God has been having a "sit down" with me the past few days. I've prayed for Him to reveal the next step for me, the next avenue I'll take in my journey to live the life I have been created to live. It seems that my bald eyelids indicate more than the changing of seasons here on Earth--it seems that the time has come for me to enter into a new spiritual season--a season of sifting.
1Thessolonians 5:23-24 begins "May God Himself, the God of peace sanctify you through and through (emphasis mine)" There's an awful lot of junk hidden in the secret compartments of my "through and through" and its time for me to let God get his hands in there to sift through it all to determine what is worthy of the journey and what will be left behind. Fears, insecurities, memories of past failure, stubbornness--there's a lot there, and it needs sifting.
As I enter into this season, I'm excited to be sure--God has given me my marching orders and nothing could be more exciting! However, I know that it won't be fun--in fact it likely will be excruciating. God intends to completely turn me inside out (just as I've asked him to). He knows I'm ready. He knows it's time. The previous season is ending, and a new one is beginning. It will glorious and sweet and heartbreaking and so very painful, but God is faithful. Besides, it's only for a season.
What season are you living in at this time of your life? Where on the map of your journey has God brought you? Is the difficult season you're facing dragging on far too long--so long you think you may not make it? Has God indicated in your life (whether through eyelashes or some other method) that it's time to move to the next season? Are you resisting? The enemy would love nothing more than to trap us into thinking that our season of joy is right where we need to stay, thereby stealing from us the gift of God's refinement of our hearts. He'd love to trick us into believing that our season of mourning or despair won't ever end and we ought to give up. Either way it's a lie. Remember that we serve a God of seasons, and He is faithful.
Grace and Peace,
Mikey
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