"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens …" Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV)

One of my family’s favorite beach cottages to rent had a screened-in porch on the second floor, overlooking a weather-worn dock. Fuchsia myrtle bushes dotted the landscape like splashes of paint, and the outdoor back stairway wrapped around a palm tree that reached for the sky, its fronds at eye level with the porch.

Early in the mornings, I snuggled in a rocking chair on the porch with my coffee and Bible. One day, I noticed a turtledove sitting on a nest in the palm tree. I watched her. She watched me. I saw two tiny eggs peeking out from under the stubble.

For an entire week, this mamma bird did one thing — rest in the palm, protecting her two tiny charges. When a violent storm came, she didn’t budge. When children ran up and down the stairs, inches from her nest, she didn’t move. When cranes, pelicans and seagulls swooped and strutted, she stayed. For this season of her life, she remained faithful to the task at hand.

We all go through seasons in life. Raising a child. Caring for a parent. Building a career. Strengthening a marriage.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

Seasons are part of God’s grand design for this earth: winter, spring, summer, fall. They are also part of God’s grand design for you and me: joy and sadness, struggle and peace, highs and lows, birth and loss. But no matter what season we find ourselves in, we can be sure God is not absent from it — He is always there.

The word “season” implies a time that will pass. If you’re in a tough season, know that it won’t last forever. But even hard seasons have a reason: In them, we sink our roots deep into the soil of faith, spread wide the branches of trust, sprout new growth. In the dormancy of winter, we rest to catch our breath before the next season begins.

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9, ESV). 

On the last morning of our vacation, I was enjoying a final cup of coffee on the porch with Mrs. Turtledove. But this time, she flew over to join Daddy Dove on the porch railing, and two downy hatchlings with eyes yet to open reached their yellow beaks heavenward.

God had given me a precious gift — a front-row seat to observe the contentment of a mother who reveled in her calling during this short season of her life. Regardless of storms, strangers or the strutting of others, she stayed true to her purpose.

While I was musing about motherhood in my own life, my teenage son stumbled sleepily onto the porch. I’m not sure if he saw the tears in my eyes as I looked at his ruffled hair, sleepy eyes, and face that needed a shave. The seasons of his childhood were quickly coming to an end.

“Look, Buddy,” I said. “The eggs hatched today.”

Heavenly Father, I’ll admit I long for joyful seasons to linger and difficult seasons to pass quickly. Help me to remember stages of life are called “seasons” for a reason. They come and go. Help me to be at peace in every season, doing what You want me to do in that period of time. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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FOR DEEPER STUDY

Ecclesiastes 3:4-7, “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak …” (ESV).

Leave a comment and share with us: What season of life are you in right now? What is God teaching you in this season?

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