Seasons Of The Soul (Jessica Satterfield)
I walked home from dropping our new little family member off at the bus stop this morning with my jacket wrapped tight around me. The days are getting shorter and the sun tags the moon much quicker than what we’d like. The flowers that were vibrant and full of life only a few months ago are losing their color and becoming tired. The leaves on the trees are holding onto the very last bit of green before they surrender to the colors of Fall.
Summer is slowly slipping away and Fall is riding in on the breeze.
I found myself whispering,“Thank you, Father,” for the very simplicity of the seasons changing this morning. His faithfulness is as steady and sure as the rising of the dawn. I am confident of His coming to me just as the sure signs of the Fall. There is great comfort in knowing that seasons end and a new one begins.
I’m a mama through adoption and my children’s stories, the way they came home to me, is nothing short of a miracle. They are just as much mine if I had birthed them. My youngest smiles like me and my little girl throws her head back to laugh like I do. They are and will always be enough.
But I’ve asked Him to heal me and He hasn’t, yet. Still I find myself in the winter of infertility, where things seem cold, dry, and dead. We’ve spent almost seven years, waiting for healing and a baby to be born from my womb. From the outside, it looks as if nothing is really happening. But the Father has given me eyes to see the unseen, to look underneath. Where the top of the ground is hard and cold, underneath sprouts are growing. Their roots are digging down deep, waiting for the moment when suddenly they push through.
We can never see it, the growing underneath. And like we miss the subtle changing of the seasons if we’re not careful, our hearts can become stale in the waiting, wondering if there will ever be an end. He reminded me this morning, that the seasons change. They always have and always will.
Spring will come.
The waiting, it does end.
So I keep finding Him here in this winter to be more cozy and warm than I could ever dream. I have found here, that He has become to me the gift. Knowing Him, finding Him here, growing and changing in Him, has been the beauty in this season now and the foundation of every season to come. I’m finding as I wait, Him growing in me a joyful confidence that produces endurance. And that endurance produces character. And character births hope. This hope, it’s the beautiful fruit found in a long season.
Photo by Sophie Lindler
The Isaacs of our stories take a long time to birth. They never come fast or easy. Their coming is always after a hard labor, a long winter. Their roots take time to dig down deep. And it’s because they produce in us something that takes time to grow. They cultivate in us something that only comes from the wait.
The wait will eventually end.
The season will eventually change.
But for now, as you find yourself here in the wait, whatever that might be, I’m praying the Father gives you eyes to see the subtle change of Spring, to see what’s really growing underneath.
“Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the shower, as the spring rains that water the earth.” Hosea 6:3 ESV
Photo by Sophie Lindler
