Sunday, November 17, 2013

The Fallow Season

The air is crisp, the sounds of leaves crunch under my feet as I walk in the evenings.  The colors of fall in Oregon are so intense that they are nearly surreal.  

As I enjoy the changes of seasons, and Oregon begins to enter the chill of winter, I am reminded of the heat of summer in Las Vegas and Arizona.  Our entire family bemoaned the lack of true seasons when we lived in the desert.  It is odd, after being raised in Ohio, to live in a place where there are only two temperatures: Extremely hot and extremely cold.

In the desert, the leaves are generally knocked off by a wind storm before they fall.  Most trees are evergreens, so there is no change of color.  The spring is not a season, it's a week.  

In Oregon, spring bursts forth with amazing colors.  The streets are lined with tulips and daffodils.  The trees begin to show buds, which are such a bright green to be nearly florescent.  The smells are amazing, and the sun kisses the soil.  Then summer is filled with green grass, fields of wheat and corn bowing in the breeze, and the crash of blue and white waves boiling onto the beaches.  Fall enters with fire reds, bright yellows and radiant oranges.  Winter holds gray skies and a scattering of white snow.  The fields are empty, nothing is produced on the farms.  
We get rain, we get a lot of rain.  We have gloomy weather.  But what I have realized is that when we lived in Vegas, without the constant rain to live through, with skies that are nearly always blue, something was missing.  

In life, we get rain.  We have to endure those fallow seasons, where we aren't growing anything.  Our fields lay fallow, we feel as though we aren't moving ahead in life, or ahead for the Lord.  But a rebirth is coming.  The spring will follow those periods of our life when there is death, there is sadness, there is a season of frigidness.  

And after we come through the winter season in our lives, we will be re-energized and life will break through with vibrant growth.  We'll find new inspiration and new hope.  

As Christians, we are not promised perfect lives.  God's goal is not to create a gentle journey for us.  His goal is for us to return to his arms, laden down with the fruit of other souls.  Part of our our sharpening process is hardship.  We are not promised ease, we are promised that when the world falls apart, we'll be held.  And, we are promised that spring is coming.

There is beauty in every season.  If it is your fallow season, take time to rest in God.  He will provide a new spring...soon.


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