Defrosting

Seasonal sadness hits so many people where it hurts year after year. I am one of those people. I may genuinely be someone who can only thrive in a climate where it's basically summer year-round.

I was talking to one of my best friends a while back who struggles with this same thing, and she coined herself a lizard - she needs the sun to live and thrive. I have a strong distaste for scaly and slimy things, but I really had to agree with her there. I tend to not feel like myself when the sun feels like it's missing, and I'm unable to go do the things that I love. And since we moved to Virginia, it's been a bit of a never-ending winter.

When I was doing my Bible study this morning, something drew me back to Ecclesiastes again. It's been a while since I originally journaled through it, but it felt like a bit of fresh air for my stale mind today.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, 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 (ESV)

There truly is a season and a time for everything - no matter how much it ails you. It's much easier said than done, but we should collectively work to take more comfort in knowing that God created the seasons for a reason, and our changing seasons of life run within the same realm of thought. Just like the weather runs its course, so do things and people within our day to day lives.

Nothing lasts forever, but do we truly want it to? I can think of a few different seasons in my life that I’d hoped would never go away, but if they hadn’t, I'd be in a remarkably different place in life. Quite frankly, I know now that I wouldn't be as well off. Because if it was meant for me, I know that God would have made it happen. But instead, He delivered me from it, and into a season that I'm so much better off in - even in awful snowy weather that sends me into a hibernation of sorts.

For the past three weeks, our yard, the roads, and my horse's pasture have been covered in a thick layer of snow, topped with the slickest ice that was showing no sign of melting. We've all been struggling in the relentless cold.

But today, it was 47 degrees out. I couldn't believe it. I could go outside without three jackets on. With the way I was acting, you'd have thought I'd just won an all-expenses paid vacation to the beach.

I might as well have. The sun was OUT. My frigid lizard skin was defrosting from the light of the brightest sun, and I felt immense warmth. It sounds so stupid, but it felt like the unwelcome winter haze over my mind defrosted a bit, too.

As I went to feed my horse, I could roll the windows down in my truck on the way there. They weren't frozen shut or anything! I basically won the lottery. It reminded me of the endless summer days back in Georgia - the joy of riding in my old Bronco down back roads.

For just a moment, the iciness of my current climate melted. Even if just for a moment.

It all just reminded me of how greatly the first sign of a changing season can bring so much hope, even to the darkest or coldest of places. No matter what you're going through, or what season you're in: the sun will come back out and the clouds will clear eventually. You just simply have to be patient, and trust that these struggles are nothing more than seasons; temporary blips in the grand scheme of life.

There is nothing that He hasn't delivered you through yet, and He won't stop now - even if it’s just a really harsh winter, and you’re a Georgia girl at heart.

Until next week,

— E. Byers, author of The Grassy Laine