Seasons

BOX SCORE
Element	Current	Std. Range	Trend
Hemoglobin	11.4	13-17	^
Platelets	126	140-375	^
ANC	730	1800-8300	^

My sweet, adorable wife, Jill, is fond of talking about "seasons" in our lives. Her point is that, much like the changing seasons of the year (are we ever going to see spring this year?), our lives go through changing seasons, too. They may not be cyclical, like the seasons of the year, you know: winter, spring, summer, fall, winter, spring, summer, fall; but rather the seasons of our lives represent distinct periods of time, during which our lives are changed in some material way. Those changes may never come back to visit again, but like the annual changes of season, these seasons of life change our circumstances and even our beings in significant ways. 

As the annual seasons come and go, our spirits are renewed. When winter gives way to spring, we are filled with renewed hope, as the world "comes back to life." Spring bulbs burst forth with splendid colors, trees begin to bloom, and leaves of green adorn their branches. I love the myriad shades of green in the spring. 

As spring gives way to the heat of summer, our activities may metamorphose from enjoying a fireside chat or shushing down a mountain to things like camping and swimming. We watch the seeds we planted in May turn into the beans we harvest in July and the pumpkins we harvest in October. 

And then autumn shows up with her brightly colored leaves and blessedly cooler days and nights. The kids go back to school, and our lives go back to "normal." Summer vacations are fond memories, and the daily grind comes to the fore. Fortunately, God has provided some breaks in that grind in the form of festivals (the harvest, Halloween) and holidays (Thanksgiving day). 

And then the earth rests. It is winter. Many of us celebrate the birth of our Savior at Christmas, while others simply enjoy the festive spirit as people seem to become a wee bit kinder and more thoughtful. We have parties, at the office or at school or at home. We celebrate the beginning of a new year and savor the opportunity for a reset and hunkering down with family...until spring. 

I think these seasons and the changes they bring provide a kind of rhythm to our lives. At the end of January, I am usually tired of bleak days, and then in February, my spirit is lifted when I see crocuses in bloom, followed shortly by cheery daffodils. 

The seasons of our lives are different. They are less cyclical and less predictable. In my own life, I think of several seasons. There were school days...lots of them. From the age of five, when I started kindergarten, until I was 24 and graduated from dental school, I started school every fall and occupied myself with learning. I recall when I reported for duty in the U.S. Naval Dental Corps at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, in California. I started my duties on July 5th and had a season of settling in to military life. When fall arrived I felt there was something dreadfully wrong in my life. I was not sleeping as well, and I had the feeling that there was something I needed to do that I was forgetting. Then one day it dawned on me. Every year for the previous twenty years, when fall came, I had gone back to school. Now that season of my life was over. Once I realized that, I began to come to terms with it, although in some ways I had to grieve that change. I had to become a real adult, and a Naval officer.

My career years represent another season of my life. The choice of dentistry was probably not the best one I could have made in terms of being work that I truly enjoyed, but I saw it through and had thirty six memorable years that stood me in good stead when the next season, retirement, came along. 

One way in which the seasons of life differ from the seasons of the year is that they may overlap, because they are seasons not of time, necessarily, but of focus. My first marriage, which I didn't manage well, lasted twenty years...a season. That season was followed by seventeen years of bachelorhood, something for which I was ill-prepared, having married immediately after undergraduate school. Those seasons changed me radically, and not for the better. 

My faith in God began in high school and lasted through undergraduate school. But college, with its intellectual and physical challenges and stresses and disappointments caused me to despair and question whether God was really there. And then there was a season of thirty plus years during which I first walked away from my faith and then ran away. When I finally exhausted myself in doing so, our Gracious God was waiting for me with welcoming arms, and a new season was upon me. For the past twenty two years, I have been living in a sort of eternal spring of hope and joy with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ leading the way. 

He quickly led me into another new season when he brought Jill into my life, followed by a calling to minister with her to strengthen families. That season has taken on several identities over the years, but it continues to this day. 

This whole blog post was hatched recently when Jill and I realized and agreed that one of the seasons we have shared is coming to an end. In 2006, about a year before I retired from my dental career, we purchased our first recreational vehicle, a used travel trailer. We pictured ourselves visiting daughter Tara, who was living in Denver, and daughter Laura who still lives in San Diego. Why not take leisurely trips seeing this beautiful country on the way to visiting our beautiful daughters? We never actually made such a trip to Denver, but we made a few to San Diego. Nevertheless, we have enjoyed seventeen years of exploring in various RVs that we have owned. And now, given my health challenges, that season is coming to an end. 

As I thought about that season, I realized that there have been other seasons of similar length involved with lifestyles that have come and gone. In 1966, when I was about to start my senior year in college, I bought an old, beat up 1953 MGTD sports car. The best description for this car was when my neighbor, upon seeing it for the first time, remarked, "Gee. You must have always wanted one of these cars." What she didn't say out loud was, "Otherwise, why would you have bought this piece of junk?" I tinkered with that car until 1981 gradually transforming it into a "presentable" old wreck. I always wanted to restore it, but I couldn't justify the expense. 

Along the way, in 1969, while I was in dental school, another season began. My classmate and best friend Maury and I found an old sailboat, of about the same quality and condition as my MG. We spent the winter fixing her up (not restoring) and the following summer learning to sail her. That began a love affair with sailboats that lasted until 1986. Thus another seventeen year season of my life passed. 

Seasons. I guess they are called that because they come and go. I encourage you to think about the seasons in your own life. You may find that God's blessings have come along in the midst of seasons of your life. Even in the hard seasons of my life, I have always learned something that turned out to be a blessing. Maybe it prepared me for the next season. Maybe it brought me joy for a time. 

The biggest blessing to come out of the seasons of my life was when I found God waiting for me at the end of my mad dash to flee Him. And in this season of battling leukemia, I am so grateful that He is walking through it with me and that the season of my marriage to Jill has prepared us both to walk with Him in faith and trust that He will never leave us nor forsake us. 

Thank you, Lord, for all the seasons of my life.