Every Season

Just like the earth has seasons, this life also has seasons. Many times throughout my life I have found myself in different seasons. Seasons for learning and growing are always enjoyable, I think of Spring. Seasons that seem to go by too quickly but are filled with laughter and exploring new possibilities and I think of Summer. Seasons of long dry deserts or times of deep reflections, I think of Fall.  But then there is Winter, it's long and cold and filled with death. It feels pointless. Everything that is beautiful seems to be gone even though it is only hidden for a time beneath the ice and snow. 

It is winter now, I have just come through an incredibly painful season in my life. But I know that after Winter comes Spring and God will bring forth new life again. 

Let me explain.........my father and my brother had both been battling cancer together. My fathers battle of 20 years with bladder cancer and my brothers battle of two years (that were know) with prostate cancer. Both metastasized to their bones. My dad passed away just three weeks before my brother, my dad was 76 and my brother was just 56. 

Once again I find myself in a season of life where my world has been shaken and I have been "Forever Changed!"

This is my beautiful dad

and this is my brother who was also my friend.

I am blessed in that I homeschool the girls so I was able to pack them up and move in with my mother for three months in order to help her with my dad and to be there for them both, also to put me closer in proximity to my brother so I could spend time loving on him and giving what support I could to his family. I live about an hour away from them both and commuting was just not practical and not a good option. 

I have the most wonderful, loving husband who held down the fort while we were gone. I am so grateful for the time I was able to give.
The girls and I have moved back home, we are all caught up on what we were behind on homeschooling and even though it is still Winter, Spring is coming! Praise the Lord!

Ecclesiastes 3

King James Version (KJV)

3 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

Blessings!
Susan