This Season

To everything there is a season,
a time for every purpose under the sun.
A time to be born and a time to die;
a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill and a time to heal ...
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance ...
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to lose and a time to seek;
a time to rend and a time to sew;
a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
a time to love and a time to hate;
a time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The air here today is cooler, the clouds a little darker. Summer is giving way to fall, to a different season, the death of one and the birth of another.  It’s strange how the seasons of our lives can relate so similarly to those of nature. 

I watch the changes occurring around me and am reminded of God’s promise in Ecclesiastes, to everything there is a season. I had hoped and prayed to never walk in this one. Losing a child was a pain I hoped never to experience, a season I prayed to never weather. Unfortunately that choice was not left to me, so I am left trying to pull some meaning from why my youngest son is not with us. To date, I can honestly say I don’t know.

I don’t know why God has allowed this unspeakable to hurt, this unexpected storm to cloud our lives. Maybe the trials down the road would have been too much to bear, for our son, for us, for those we love. Perhaps God had watched me wander long enough, aimlessly, and decided to use this to storm to give me shelter, to bring me home, to give me a new season to begin again.  Maybe within this tragedy lies the purpose for my life I have been praying to find.  I really don’t know.

What I do know is that now I know He is with me, and one day He will show me the reason.  Our season, this time of mourning, is underway, but I know our time to dance will come again. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day.  And I know in that season, I will be able to think of everything we have been through, to think of Cain, without the rain, and see only the sun.