Closing Time

“Closing time, every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end…”

As I sit and look back on this past season of CGA, these lyrics (as goofy as it is) keep spinning around in my mind as I wonder how it went by so quickly.

I find myself in another season of transition yet again, trying to figure out this new beginning.

It’s a sobering thought, that time really can fly by in a blink. Sometimes it can make you wonder whether it was real at all.

But as I have been pondering on this, I have been challenged to view the transition of seasons not as something just to mourn, but also as something to rejoice in.

My mind often thinks in images, so the Lord gave me a vision of what the inside of a tree looks like when cut into a stump. Here’s a picture for a visual:

When I pictured this in my mind, I was inclined to do a bit of research. This is what I came across:

“If you’ve ever seen a tree stump, you’ve probably noticed that the top of a stump has a series of concentric rings. These rings can tell us how old the tree is, and what the weather was like during each year of the tree’s life. The light-colored rings represent wood that grew in the spring and early summer, while the dark rings represent wood that grew in the late summer and fall. One light ring plus one dark ring equals one year of the tree’s life”

I may just be a nerd but y’all I thought that this was SO COOL because in my head, I imagined these rings as different periods of my life. And like a tree, for us to grow, we also have to walk in different seasons.

Something that I am guilty of is over-glorifying the light parts of my life as “better” or “more important” than that of the dark seasons of my life. No one wants to walk through the hard stuff, right?

But what’s beautiful is that the dark and light rings CO-EXIST. You can’t have one without the other—and this is true for our human reality as well. BOTH are vital for growth. We often waste so much time trying to get out of the dark parts of our life that we begin to numb ourselves to the light ones, too.

This is hard for me. But what the Lord has been teaching me a ton about is this: I have the capacity to hold joy and pain at the same time. That just because something doesn’t feel good, doesn’t mean that its bad—I have the capacity to feel it AND acknowledge that it’s hard.

If I am honest with you guys right now, I feel as though I am in the middle of a freaking thick dark season; probably one of the hardest in my life. However, I also find myself looking back with so much joy knowing that through some of the pain I have held, the Lord has been gentle and kind to teach me so much about His character and what I am capable of in it.

Ephesians 3:17-19 says:

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

The simple truth is this: we serve a God that doesn’t let anything go to waste. Transitions are hard. Saying goodbye to people you love is hard. Having to walk into something new can feel scary. But as I reflect on the above verse, I am reminded that every moment of my life is accounted for—the wonderful and the painful and everything in between. HIS love is the most extravagantly wild thing we could ever experience and how cool is it that we get to experience the deepness of this life with Him?

We get to feel laughter and tears and love and heartache and joy and we get to be messy-beautiful before the throne because it’s all His. He just wants us. And the minute we dial down God to only the moments that “feel good” in our lives, is the minute we limit His goodness.  

So, my prayer for you is that whatever season you are walking through, you are reminded of how the Lord lavishly loves you (1 John 3:1) and that He has a plan and purpose for everything you do (Jeremiah 29:11).

“Haven’t I ordered you, ‘Be strong, be bold’? So don’t be afraid or downhearted because Adonai your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

Thanks for reading and as always, let me know if there is any way that I can be praying for you. Blessings!