Seasons

No one reads this anymore.

I've been thinking a lot lately about seasons. I believe that God measures our lives in seasons, and that each one has challenges - no matter HOW good it is. I think it can be really easy to despise the season you're in.

When I was 12, my Dad got a job in New Mexico, and my whole world was turned upside down. Everything I knew was uprooted, and I spent two years hating the desert I was in, both physically and emotionally. When I started to get involved in my church and made a few friends, things started looking up - but I still hated living there, and I would've gone back to Oklahoma in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. Once I finally got out of there, there was no looking back! I kicked the dust off my heels and said "good riddance!" to the Land of Enchantment.

Oklahoma, Wisconsin...Pennsylvania. I've moved around a lot in the past ten years, but it's only been in these past two years that I miss Albuquerque. I miss the clouds that looked like paintings. I miss the sunshine. I miss my friends there. I miss the mountains. I miss skiing. I miss the plays at my church. I REALLY miss green chile. And it pains my heart to think that the entire ten years I lived there, I spent my time hating it and wishing I were somewhere else.

When I look back on that season of my life now, I see it as a significant growth season. I see all of the ways that I changed and matured and learned who I really was, and it saddens me that that season of my life has ended. I don't know if I'll ever live in Albuquerque again. I don't know if I'll ever hear "red or green?" at LITERALLY EVERY RESTAURANT that I go to, or ski the Sandias, or look up in the sky and see so many billions of stars that I can't help but stare in wonder. I don't know what this life holds in this season, or the next, or the next. I don't know when suddenly there won't be a next.

But one thing I learned from my season in New Mexico is that you take from a season what you put into it, and the best thing to do is to enjoy today, right now, at this moment...because one day, you might long for the things you once found ordinary, or even despised. You might realize that you could have gotten so much more out of a season if you had just taken the time to appreciate the place that God had you in, and chosen to "count it all joy."

I want to live for today, to milk this season for all it's worth. And I want to do the same in the next, and the next, and the next, until God decides that the time for seasons has come to an end, and it's time to embrace eternity.