The Ups and Downs of a Season Change, and the Blessings It Brings

We bundled up in coats and hats and gloves. The clouds looked heavy and dark, and the rain or snow was due to fall on us mid-practice. It was the first soccer practice of the spring season, but the 40-degree air and breezy cold did not feel like spring at all.

When I think April, I think warm sun. Hoodies and rain boots. Tulips, daffodils, and the smell of fresh cut grass. April is the beginning of the spring season- the bright, yet wet, season between the cold of winter and the heat of summer. Spring is the transition from one extreme to the next.

This year spring seems to be struggling to conquer the winter. The frigid air and snow continue to come. I recently read a meme that winter in Ohio is storming out of the room before turning back declaring, “And one more thing…”

The change of seasons is unpredictable. We can watch and plan, but its hard to be certain about anything. Two days can be completely different in temperature, storms can roll in and out within minutes, and the things we hope for the season seem to feel few and far between.

The seasons of life can be the same. When we transition from one season of life to another we linger in the unpredictable. We long for the changeover to be band-aid style: quick and easy with just a hint of pain. Instead, it’s like the changing of the weather. It’s a gradual, unpredictable shift that gives us moments of what we hope for in the middle of the storms.

In some seasons of life, we will see a day or two of blessing, but the days between feel long and lonely. Our desire is for the coming days of warmth and blessings, but we feel stuck in the cold days under intimidating clouds.

Deuteronomy 28:12 says, “The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands.” The seasons of life are a bit unpredictable, but in each season, we will find his blessing. Notice it doesn’t say anything about a pattern or a specific time it will happen. Instead, it says the Lord will open the heavens. It is in his timing we will see the blessings, not ours.

Riding through the changing seasons of life can be tough. Our hope and prayers ebb and flow like spring weather in Ohio. If we ride it out through the cold and storms we will find our sunny days. Life isn’t predictable, it’s a spring pattern of showers of blessings.

What blessings are coming to you this season?