Rick opened the back door this morning and asked me to come out for a minute. Thinking that he wanted to show me something in the garden, or listen to his thoughts about how to implement an idea from my Backyard Dreams board on Pinterest, I excitedly stepped out the back door. “Isn’t that amazing?” he asked. I hesitated and looked around. “Can you believe how great it feels out here?” There was a refreshing chill in the air, one we hadn’t felt in a long time, almost as if the season is changing….but wait it’s August 15, that can’t happen right now. I am left with a dilemma of what to do with this out of the ordinary day, (or few upcoming, non-ordinary days) that don’t make much sense in the mind of a non-meteorologist. I love the crisp, refreshing morning, but I enjoy it more because I’ve experienced the days that weren’t so refreshing or beautiful.
It definitely is not your typical mid-August weather here in the south, but come to think of it, there has been very little about this summer that has been typical or normal. We experienced days on end of rain and clouds, not just our late afternoon thunderstorms that we normally have for most of June. In July, temperatures only reached 90 degrees 4 days compared to last year when temperatures were sweltering, only giving us four bearable days were below 90.
Far fewer days were spent at the park or the pool this summer. Our kids may have played indoors a lot more; read more books, played more board games and probably a bit more video games. I started the summer expecting arguments and disagreements and the frequent need to referee but was pleasantly surprised at the end of the summer that I had hardly blown my referee whistle and that our home had been overall …peaceful. Truthfully, another out of the ordinary surprise of Summer 2013.
Our grass is still green and alive which is great unless you are one of our four sons wishing it was brown and crackly so there would be longer periods between mowing. Our water bill has been less because we haven’t had to water our garden or front porch plants, or wash as many loads of beach towels. Our tomato plants thrived in all this rain, but not many of the other veggies we planted did very well at all.
Sometimes, seasons are confusing, unpredictable, or inconsistent, whether natural seasons of the year or seasons of life that we experience, but the truth of the matter is that another season will follow this one, and then another, then, another. Each season isn’t always better than the one before but there is always benefit in each and without the hard ones, the ones that seem unbearable like last summer when 27 days of July were between 90-104 can we have appreciation for the easy pleasant ones.
I’m hearing lots of chatter about seasons right now. Yes, the change from summer to fall but also that we, as the body of Christ are entering in to a new season. Just as we may not understand every thing that will happen during the next season; whether revival breaks out in our country or town, whether our unsaved loved one comes to know Jesus, or whether this is the hardest season we have ever walked through, we can trust that just like the sun was there behind the clouds every rainy day in June doing the things the sun does, we can know and trust that our loving God, who knows 10, 50, 100 seasons from now, is with us, completely unchanged by the clouds and circumstances of the day or the season and He is doing what God does. He always loves us and He is always good and we can always trust Him to work things together for the good of those who are His.
Alison Lapinsky 