SEASONS

MareBearHitstheRoad Blogger - I have only blogged once since my arrival here in the Big Apple, and as many of you can imagine, it has really been challenging in more ways than I expected.  Being a Native New Yorker and Native Oregonian presents special experiences and opportunities for growth and learning and change. Often in our faith we speak of Seasons as it relates to experiences with a person, a job, a home, things etc. It is a beautiful way to describe various times and experiences that affect us in profound and deeply emotional ways both positive and negative.  As I approach the close of my first real week here I find myself searching deep within my heart to unscramble all of the sights and smells and sounds but mostly the change that is in play.  I have been welcomed with the same open and loving arms that embraced me with love and friendship when I left. I have enjoyed spending time with old friends from more than 35 years ago to new friends from old friendships passed along.

Environmentally speaking, I have been blessed with a roof over my head and a home for my 4 fur faces that has come graciously with not just a low price tag but with a couple of months worth of grace thrown in, until I can establish a steady income.  After some hard days of cleaning and sweeping and washing, half of my new home has become quite homey. Even though most everything in it is not mine, sans the computer and a few odds and ends, my few little touches gives me a sense of belonging. The dogs have settled in wonderfully but since they are driven emotionally by their human buds, I fully expected very little change in them. Elmer and Kaijin have also settled in a bit, but their season of change requires much more adaptation than Asa and Kiah.  But all in all, exploration and excitement seems to be their new yardstick by which I gage thumbs up or thumbs down.

This move, so dramatic and in some ways traumatic, is reminiscent of the many times God asks his children to walk away from what is comfortable to what is unknown. He demands, in a way, that we walk by Faith and not by Sight!  And His word tells how to do that. Not just here and there but every page of the bible we read passage after passage that we must be willing to walk in places where our comforts come last and He come first. But in those same pages, passage after passage we are also told that HE WILL NOT forsake His children. Sometimes we will walk in what are known as seasons of darkness, where we cannot Hear Him, do not Feel Him, cannot Find Him. These cold winters are often filled with loneliness, fear, despair and disappointment. His silence in these times is deafening and crushing. His will unclear, our path unlit, our present an abyss.  And then there are those times when Spring has arrived with such a force that even the blossoms themselves seem to bursting with tremendous love, energy, a well spring of life. Where with each breath we take or every step we move, we can hear the buzzing in our hearts of God working within us, around us and through us!

Summer and Fall which always seem to come and go, maybe with not as much intensity as they are more seasons of rest and comfort, are still important. I think that during these seasons we experience God in a quietly dramatic way. We become filled with a sense of renewal and refreshing. The winds don't necessarily blow as hard or as long as when we are in the Winter of His Grace. But it is perhaps during the fiery heat of summer when we experience the refiners fire or the blustering wind of fall, when the leaves on the trees fall and swirl about our feet that we can learn the most of what is in store, if we simply walk by Faith and Trust what we cannot see in the wind and rain.

In Isaiah 54 we are reminded that God is the great Commander of our Vessel, which is our life, and as Commander we must learn to trust that He knows the seas and seasons by which we will travel. We must act and be the crew that surrenders their loyalty, faith, trust, fears, understanding and be at the ready when He commands us to raise the sails, or lower the boom; standing at the ready to follow where there is no light; sail when the waves are 30 feet high; or simply be patience and watch as He navigates the waters.  Why? Because we BELONG TO HIM. We are His children and He will not forsake anyone of us. He will leave the 99 to save the 1. And he never does this without a purpose. Even when he knows what we will do, He will see His purpose through.

Some would question then why bother, if he knows our choices before we make them, then why bother choosing in the first place? Some would question whether we are not simply an experiment by God, in a test tube, as it were?  But I would say to them, that is not possible. Because we cannot even fathom in our hearts, minds or spirits all that God has planned. Yes, He knows what we will do before we do it. However, the difference to remember is that WE ARE MAKING THE CHOICE NOT GOD. So predetermination is not the possibility. If we are simply the experiment, puppets doing God's bidding then why have we been given "the opportunity of CHOICE". My point here is that whatever you believe, wherever or whatever you worship examine the season you are in and how you got there.  Did you get there because of the choices or a choice you made long ago, that created a ripple that caused a wave? Are you there because GOD put you there? Are you a drone, in a sea of drones plodding through life aimless, without purpose blaming God for your station or lack there of, in life?

God knew the day He created my life who my parents were, who my siblings would be and all that those 2 things entail. The sadness, the abuse, the horrors, the triumphs, the CHOICES, and the day I would choose Him over all things. He did not make my parents do the things they did; He did not take the lives of my siblings because of choices they made; He did not make my siblings choose the paths they each took. The only thing that I am certain He did do was give me the parents He chose for me; the siblings He wanted for me; and the rest was humanity. He knew before I was born that one day, as I sat at a women's retreat, that I would turn to Him and Rest. And as the seasons have come and gone, some good and some bad, He knew that I would KNOW....that regardless of the Season or the Choice, He would love me no matter what.

So as I begin this Season of Change for Breiter Futures Foundation, I truly believe that I am covered by the sails of my Captain. That whatever choices I make, that He will Shine so brightly through me that others will want to ask where or more likely WHY are you so happy, joyful, encouraging or whatever it is and in that moment, as I look UP and not OUT....I will smile a broad and bright smile and simply share the message of Jesus Christ. A message that is ALL about Faith, Hope and Love and not about leaning on my own understanding...allowing others to see it too!

Pebble out.....