Counselor's Corner: There is a Season for Everything

With the recent arrival of the Spring season the dead and lifeless trees, flowers and bushes are bursting forth with life again. My yard is alive with new growth, vibrant colors, and spectacular displays of God’s beauty. However, in the Winter season my yard is dull, barren and virtually lifeless. I always look forward to Spring each year after the cold, barren, and at times unbearable winters we can get.

There are parallels between the physical seasons and the spiritual seasons in our lives. Each season in our lives can be a time of reflection, learning, waiting, pruning, preparing, and planning.

Over the last several years of my life it has seemed as if I were in a long, barren “winter season,” there was not a lot of growth, and many of my circumstances were dark and difficult to navigate through. It was a dark and “lifeless” season, but I kept pruning areas in my life that God was showing me needed to be cut off, I kept waiting and expecting the “spring” season would come at any time, and I kept learning the ways of God. I did a lot of preparation during my winter season, with little or no indication things would get any better; I was learning to trust God by walking by faith not by sight. Many things appeared dormant or barren in my life-not able to come to life again. As I am writing this article, I am reminded that we are in the Spring season, there are baby birds chirping away and new blooms are sprouting on my jasmine tree. How beautiful a reminder as we are celebrating holy week. How it must have appeared that Friday when Jesus was crucified and buried, with no signs of life-dark, dead, and lifeless. But, on that glorious third day, Jesus Christ was resurrected from the grave. Death, the grave and hell lost its powers that day.

I want all of us to reflect on this season we are in, it’s not about Easter bunnies, Easter egg hunts, or even family gatherings but about the Resurrected King that triumphed over death bringing eternal life to us all through the shedding of His blood.

Whatever “season” you are in in your life, know that Christ specializes in the impossible and bringing dead things back to life. He is the Great I Am and has conquered death and the grave, and He lives. Whatever you are experiencing in your time of life is nothing compared to what God has prepared for those who call on Him by name and believe He is the Son of God.

May the Lord shine His goodness, His grace, and His overpowering love to you this holy week. For He has risen and death has lost its sting. Death does not have the final say.