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Seasons

Like frost on a rose/Winter comes for us all/Oh how nature acquaints us/With the nature of patience/Like a seed in the snow I've been buried to grow/For your promise is loyal from seed to sequoia 

Hillsong wrote a beautiful song called Seasons. I'll be honest and tell you that it wasn't immediately the top song I listen to. I'll also tell you it was because I didn't really know the words. It wasn't until a friend gently told me I was crazy for not liking the song...and told me the actual words of the song.

If there is something I've become more aware of, its seasons. There is hot season, and rainy season, and my personal favorite, mango and litchi season. That last season, I wish every season were like that, but unfortunately, mangoes and litchi do not grow year round. Each season has a purpose. And the purpose is to bring the fruit. There has to be a dry season for all the dead to fall away and make way for growth. There has to be a rainy season because that is the only way to produce fruit. Then there is the harvest. The harvest is what you wait all year long for.

Its a lesson in patience.

I've never been one to be very patient. I mean, I do it, because I know it will benefit my growth in the Lord. But I do not enjoy it. Since knowing the Lord called me to come to Madagascar and during my time here, it hasn't been easy. There have been days that I cried out to God saying "this is not what I thought would happen. Is this even part of your promise?" It was hard and I didn't enjoy it. It just seemed like nothing was going right. Many nights of tears because I didn't know what the Lord was doing. I felt like a seed in the snow. But I had forgotten I had been buried to grow.

I felt like a fish out of water. Until one day. Four weeks ago, I was sitting in church. As I looked around the room, I realized that I was surrounded by people I loved. People that love the Lord and are striving to live to glorify him. I watched as a pastor, who, when he committed to being a pastor, couldn't read well. I watched and listened as this pastor read scripture flawlessly and taught the church. I watched as children sang songs of scripture. It was the day the Lord showed me the harvest. He showed me, what he had promised me.

As I look back on the past 5 years, I can't help but see God's faithfulness. His promise is certainly loyal. We know that the dry season will not last forever. We also know that we will not drown in the rainy season. We know all this, but I think we forget it. We forget that the harvest season is coming. We forget that we have to sluff off the dead to make way for the green. Don't live like the rainy season will last forever. Live like you can smell the sweet fruit of harvest.

I lived the past year and a half in the rainy season. I lived like it would never end. Until 4 weeks ago, I had accepted that "this is just how it is." But, my sweet friends, that is not how it is. Being perfectly loved is how it is. It's Jesus showing you his love for you through people. It's being accepted AND loved despite not speaking a language clear enough or not enjoying the heat or hating when you get sandfleas in your feet. It's being called sister, when the only thing that connects you is Jesus Christ. It's being given a sweet family in a foreign place and wishing you didn't have to go anywhere because you miss them so much when you're gone.

I don't know what season you're in. But let me encourage you to live for the harvest season. Know you will not shrivel up or drown in the seasons before harvest. Remember, his promise is loyal. There is no end to his faithfulness.

Like a seed you were sown for the sake of us all/From Bethlehem's soil grew Calvary's Sequoia



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