seasons of our lives

As a librarian, I was very active at the state and national levels in my field. This fall, I’m letting things go. In the past, I really looked forward to professional conferences and conventions. Now, they are not at all attractive. I’m not even interested in reading about them. Seeing the pictures has no pull, no draw at my professional heartstrings. 

This is part of the ebb and flow of life. Everything has a season, and my season as a librarian is clearly done. While I’ll miss the students and my colleagues greatly, I’m looking forward to turning the computers off for the last time, cataloging the last book, leaving the shelves in order (even if they’ll only stay straight for a few minutes).

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NASB) There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven—

Verse 4: A time to weep and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance.

Most of my adult life, things have happened right on schedule. There was a lot of joy, some anguish, but everything happened pretty much just as I expected it would. 

The last several years have been different. I was immersed in that time to weep, that time to mourn, and it caught be by surprise. I am so grateful God doesn’t leave us to languish there. It is but for a season, oh so painful, but just a season.

And then He gives us a new season. A time to laugh and a time to dance. How glorious this time is after the weeping and mourning. A new season full of freshness and hope. Longing and desire. 

I know it won’t last. Like any season, it will end. I may well have to live through a time of weeping and mourning again. Worse still, I may leave Allen to a repeat of that horrible period. I know this, but I can’t dwell on it, because right now, in this moment, in this season, I rejoice in the laughing and dancing.