This blog is inspired by the conversation between Annie Downs and Amanda Cook on That Sounds Fun Podcast: Episode #137
Living in the Canadian prairies, we live in surrender to the seasons and ever changing weather.
Summers are short and hot, accompanied by growth. Autumns mark the time of harvest and preparation for the entry of a new season — winter. Winter is long and cold. Yet to many’s demise, essential for what comes next. Spring. New life. A resurrection of sorts. While we dream of an endless summer, the reality is we don’t.
Just imagine what an endless summer would look like for you. Always warm out, sun shining as you sit outside with your friends and family. The smell of barbecue at your old childhood home. That time and place that you know can never be again, but you wish you it could be.
Endless summer. It’s what the human soul craves.
However, nature has a way of teaching our soul things that we would either wise miss. Tree’s don’t fight the thing essential to life. Instead there is a radical acceptance to the changing of seasons. For nature knows it is the essential winter not the endless summer that renews the landscape.
The modern world has seemed to subside the importance of seasons, almost wiping them out entirely. You are able to enjoy any fruit or vegetable your heart desires at any time of the year. There are no limits. Winters however, seem to remind us of our limits, which we do not like.
And for this reason there seems to be a fear. A fear of winter. A season that restrains our full capacity to produce and create and grow. Therefore, as an antidote to this fear, we hustle and we strive in order to escape winter’s effect on us.
Let me say that the fear is real!
The fear that you aren’t doing enough.
The fear to accept the winter because of the uncertainty if spring will ever come.
That is real.
We are allowed to have winters, because it is essential for us. There comes a time to make the radical acceptance that you were not made to produce, you were not made to strive, you were not made for an endless summer.
I recognize, living in Canada that winter does not always follow our own timelines. However, when the winter feels indefinite, “it is divinely human that you are here.” It is essential.
And you don’t need to fake the season you’re in. “You don’t need to be happy for people to love you.” Bring your sadness. Bring your winter. “You don’t have to force the spring.”
Change your perspective that the endless winter is actually essential for your heart, mind and soul.
This is radical acceptance.
Jesus’ incarnation – coming down to our level and embracing the messiness of human nature – demonstrates that Jesus did not teach us to avoid hardship, but rather showed us how to embrace it. Jesus radically accepted death because it was essential to our survival, to our resurrection.
The interesting thing is, our world today and even our human nature, teaches us to strive for an endless summer. But what that really is, is escapism – “the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities.”
Could you imagine if Jesus sought out relief from the winter he was to endure? Rather he surrendered to his control, he surrendered to death, much like how the trees surrender to the death of fall and the burial of winter.
This is faith.
Letting go of control. Surrendering to the change of seasons. An endless summer would not require much faith if you were certain you didn’t require anything.
But God, in His great grace, desires so much to give us good gifts. However, it is quite often that the best gifts come after “a season when deaths victory can seem supreme…and nature feels like our enemy,” (Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak).
Parker Palmer says it best.
“Autumn constantly reminds me that my daily dyings are necessary precursors to new life. If I try to make a life that defies the diminishment’s of autumn the life I end up with will be artificial at best and colourless as well. But when I yield to the endless interplay of living and dying, dying and living, the life I am given will be colourful and fruitful and whole…Nature is not dead in winter, it has gone under ground to renew itself and prepare for spring…Winter clears the landscape, however brutally, giving us a chance to see ourselves and others more clearly…The winters will drive you crazy unless you learn how to get out into them…If you live here long, you learn that a daily walk into the winter world will fortify the spirit by taking you boldly into the very heart of the season you fear,” (Palmer, Let Your Life Speak).
For whatever season you are in, do not fear the winter. It is a gift. Perhaps you may not even realize the season you are currently in now because the world has made you believe that an endless summer is attainable. Friend, remember that “the cycle of seasons is trustworthy and life giving even in the most dismaying season of all,” (Palmer, Let Your Life Speak).
Thanks for taking the time to read these words. They were written with you in mind, but to be honest I’m speaking them right back to my own heart.
If we haven’t met, my name is Daysha. I am probably just like you in many respects. Someone who is trying to figure out life, her dreams, and her passions. Discovering who God called her to be, while cheering others on that same journey. A girl who struggles with insecurities, fears and shame. But who is showing up imperfectly for the glory of God and the good of others.
I love me some chick flicks, Hallmark movies and all things history. My pup has my heart. And pineapple on pizza is the only way to go. Haha!
I’d love to get to know you more. Leave a comment either about the blog post itself or just a fun fact about you.
Listen to:
Seasons by Hillsong
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