Seasons

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says “To everything these is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”  If you are of my generation, maybe you too are very familiar with the song Turn! Turn! Turn! released by the Byrds in 1965.  The lyrics to the song are almost verbatim from the King James version of the Bible except for the closing line after a time for peace…I swear it’s not too late.  My introduction to this Scripture passage was from the radio and supplemented by Sunday School. At the time and for many years, it was a song with a catchy beat that even when I read the passage in my Bible it was hard to do so without doing so in a somewhat sing/song voice in my head.  

I was living in The Netherlands and attending elementary school on a US Air Force base during the Vietnam conflict.  My father wasn’t in the military but virtually all of my classmates’ fathers were, a number of them were fighter pilots.  The war was very real. That reality was juxtaposed with the hippies all around us. The timing of the Byrds’ version of the song along with the closing line of a plea for peace caused me to think of this as an anti-war anthem for many years.  It wasn’t until many years later that I reflected more on the other lines and aspects of time.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.  How many times have I thought and felt that I just didn’t have enough time to (fill in the blank…).  God assures us that there is enough time. So, maybe I wasn’t prioritizing appropriately how I was choosing to spend my time.  It wasn’t more time I needed, it was better choices about how I spent it. Easy to say but so hard to do.

A time to be born, a time to die.  A time to plant, a time to reap. Since the days when I first sang along to Turn! Turn! Turn! on the radio, I have said goodbye for now to many a loved one.  I reminisce about how they spent the seasons of their lives and what seeds they planted along the way. I am so grateful for the seeds of love they planted in me.  I wonder about the seeds I have planted and what will be harvested as a result. At times such as this, I think about the movie “Mr. Holland’s Opus”. The students he taught over the years were the seeds he planted, the musical notes.  He didn’t realize it at the time, but he created and then conducted a beautiful symphony.

There are more verses to the Scripture and the song but you get the picture.  Our time is finite but there is enough of it to do the things we were meant to do.  Time really is our most precious commodity yet it can be the one we spend without that awareness.  

The season of my life may have changed – Spring has passed, the heat of Summer is over, the days grow shorter as Autumn gives way to Winter.  Yet there is still time for every purpose under heaven. Time to make better choices about how I spend time, time to plant new seeds of friendship, time to weep with those who mourn, time to experience joy and share a laugh, time to dance to the music of life….will you join me?  

Blessings,

Vicki

© Chateau Life Coach