Just as the Creator ordered nature to experience seasons, so did He plan for your entire life to be made up of seasons. There are surely some seasons of your life you wish would have lasted much longer, and others you would never choose to visit again. In both the exuberant and the excruciating seasons of your life, you can consider them to be sacred, personal chapters of life shared between you, your loved ones, and the Lord.

Examples Of Personal Seasons

• A year of your life where you were in and out of doctor’s offices every few weeks
• The stage of your life when you were discovering your gifts and passions
• The period of time when you were looking for a job or deciding on which college to attend
• A time of mourning for the loss of a friendship or marriage, or passing of a loved one
• The years of opportunity when you attended classes and camps to sharpen your skills
• The middle school years (collective sigh!)
• Early days of being in love
• Having multiple kids in diapers or getting driver’s licenses
• Being in counseling or working through a hard time emotionally
• Launching your career

How To Get The Most Out Of Seasons

Name Each One

• Just as you understand the distinctions of spring, summer, fall, and winter, it is fitting for you to mark and title each personal season as well. Study Psalm 139 and notice how your Father is with you through all the days of your life.
• Consider assigning a small notebook for various seasons of your life to write down your needs, questions, thoughts, worries, and feelings. Record the ways Jesus encourages, moves, and sustains you. Track your progress, and document what you learned in order to pass wisdom down to future generations.

Look Outside

• Your personal seasons aren’t confined to your own atmosphere. God’s using your climate to connect with all of the earth and His Kingdom.
• Don’t let anything interfere with time to talk and listen to God through each season. From inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. (Jonah. 2:1)
• Let God’s Word lead you and minister to you. Use a Bible dictionary either in the back of a Bible or on-line to look up words that relate to your season like purpose, growth, gifts, waiting, suffering, joy, etc. Read passages in Scripture of men and women experiencing seasons of life, such as Paul’s “prison seasons” or Esther’s “fasting season or Jesus’ “teaching season.”

Watch Your Seasonal Footprint

• Where possible, try not to carry unhealed wounds with you into future seasons. Leftover hurts can lead you to have an unchecked “go-to” place of future responses – such as being overly sensitive, easily angered, bitter, anxious, withdrawn, prideful, too dependent, etc. These negative emotions could rob you of benefits meant for you in your current season.
• Ask yourself what triggers and behaviors you will need to monitor as God continues to heal you from particularly rough seasons; and look for healthier “go-to” places like worship, God’s Word, forgiveness, love, rest, and continual prayer as you prepare to transition to the next season.
• Contemplate how you can be growing from one season to the next.

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” (Eccl. 3:1)