Is it time for a new season in your life? Day 13

We are finishing a season of winter. Outside, everything outside turned dull and brown. The wind is whipping and there has been  frost on the windows. Coats and sweaters have been the wardrobe.  

Winter is a time when all the evidence points towards death. In winter, the parts of life that were beautiful and growing fell to the ground. Cold air blows away everything green and vibrant.

And sometimes our inner emotional life can mirror the weather. It can be a season where pain is our constant companion. We come to expect it. During winter, you can feel like the sun will never warm the earth again. You lose hope. You reconcile yourself to survival living. 

In our seasons of winter, relationships and dreams that shimmered with life appear to be dying.  Maybe you had a run of bad luck or maybe you needed to be pruned. That is the work of winter. Subterranean work. When branches get lopped off, roots dig deeper and life pushes upward and outward.

Have you experienced winter? Perhaps you’ve been there for a while – if so, does it feel like you are stuck?

Winter can feel like rejection

Winter can be tough on the spirit. It can happen in times of transition. It can show up when you have to leave relationships and enter a lonely space. Or when you’re caring for needy people, you may find yourself in winter. Or when you just don’t hear from God and you tire of seeking him. It can feel like rejection. Your spirit feels jolted. 

When you’re in a winter season, you can be cold to the touch. People avoid you. Maybe you remind them of the pain of their own winter seasons. Maybe the silence you feel from God scares them. They feel awkward. Your place of rejection taps into the rejection they too easily fall into.

In summer, we experience purpose. It is a productive time of forward motion. In winter, it can feel as though you are going backward. You can feel as though you have lost your purpose. Winter is a time of retreating to conserve warmth while the work of dying is going on.

Discerning winter’s end

But winter has to end. At some point, Narnia thaws and Aslan appears. The temperature outside begins to climb and if you listen, you can hear a bird’s song announcing change.

Locked up inside, we can miss some of the signals that may give us hope. The pain can etch the neural pathways in our brain and we can get stuck in a negative loop. Subconsciously we think, “I just have to endure. I have to keep my head down.” In a way, we get addicted to the pain or get addicted to the things we use to numb it.

That’s when we need friends who can point out change before it arrives. That’s when we need to hang onto whatever shred of hope that alights on our window sill.

Jeremiah was a man who lived in the worst of winters. His nation was destroyed – his friends and family devastated. “I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath,” he said of himself. (Lam. 3:1)

But God had not forgotten him. One day he wanted to speak with Jeremiah about the coming change of seasons. 

The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?”

“I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied.

The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled.” (Jer. 1:11-12)

The almond tree is the first to bloom and the last to bear fruit. In spring, the almond trees blossoms in Israel. Their blooms are a tangible sign of a change of seasons – warmth returning.

Consider the possibility that there’s an almond tree blooming outside your spiritual window right now. Perhaps it’s time to speak to your pain and declare its work done. Perhaps it’s time to move with faith into a place where you can thank pain for what it has shown you and taught you, and then show it the door.

The God of all comfort gives us pain as a gift, not to torment us, but to teach us and help us move into a life of abundance. But if you’ve grown used to its throbbing, it may be hard to recognize that its season is over.

Have you been in a season of winter? Has it felt as though spring would never come? We all go through seasons like that. But then comes the day of new blooms that signal an end to your pain.

Application

1. Ask God to show you if there is anything else that pain has to teach you. Maybe forgiveness? Maybe humility? Maybe perseverance?

2. Ask God what can you do to move from pain to comfort. In our last post, we looked at the idea of fasting. Is God asking you to press into greater intimacy with him?

3. If God doesn’t give you anything more and if you’ve reflected and haven’t gotten anything more, then maybe it’s time for a change of seasons. Get confirmation from friends. Then, declare victory over your pain! Give a testimony. Throw a party. Move with faith out of your place of pain