plans

Fall into a new season

September 8, 2020 — Leave a comment

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Normally after Labor Day, there is a mental shift to fall. Schools are starting. Denim jackets are coming out. White clothes are put away. But this year, schools have started and closed again. There is sweltering heat in California. Sweats are the only things people are wearing year round. But it can be helpful to transition into a new season, even if it’s telling yourself you’re doing it in the midst of circumstances seemingly the same.

It gives you a chance to reflect on what has happened thus far. How are you different now than when summer first started, when lock downs were first implemented, when you rung in the new year? How have you grown? What have you learned? What have you lost? Who have you lost? What are you not bringing into the next season?

It gives you a chance to imagine and bless this next chunk of time. What do you hope for? Where do you want to be more settled? What changes can take place right now?

Transitioning into a new season also gives you grace for the all the ways you fell short in the last season. It gives you a sense of newness that you actually do have permission to bring into every morning. You are allowed to again be hopeful for things that did not pan out. How can each day feel like a new beginning and a new ending? We are met with new mercies every morning and we have a sanctuary to let things go every night. May we gently use the time in between, trusting that all things will pan out in due time. It’s a level of trust rooted in purpose and in a good God.

CBG: Bitterness

May 11, 2020 — Leave a comment

So [Naomi and Ruth] went on until they came to Bethlehem. And when they came to Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them. And the women said, “Is this Naomi?” She said to them, “Do not call me Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabite her daughter-in-law with her, who returned from the country of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of barley harvest.

Ruth 1:19-22

You are Naomi. You left your homeland in hopes of a better future. Instead, you lost your husband and your sons. You come home with a stranger-to-the-land. People are stirred up by your presence. You are so bitter, you tell people to see you only by your current feelings. Circumstances, really God, have changed you forever.

You are Ruth. You gained a family and then lost most of it. You give up your hometown, everything you know, to follow a woman you feel you’re supposed to follow. You come to this new land where everyone is staring at you. When people come up to you and your mother-in-law, she doesn’t even acknowledge you. You are part of the empty she is in right now. If anyone should be bitter at this moment, it should be Ruth, right? She gave up everything and the woman she gave up everything to wouldn’t even acknowledge it. But where can she go? She already left her hometown. She might have already broken ties back there. She can’t go back.

Ruth and Naomi are both in situations where there are no other options. Naomi/Mara who is so bitter, so wrapped up in her past and present grievances, she misses the best thing right next to her. Ruth who is in a new land with new rules, unacknowledged, questioning if her loyalty and integrity had indeed led her down the right path.

Are you a Mara or a Ruth right now?

Prayer: God I pray that any bitterness and resentment we are allowing to grip us would be released. I pray that you would give us more room to be soft and an ability to see beyond our losses and grievances. God help us to acknowledge the things we have gained whether physical, mental or emotional. God help us to lean into our loyalty and integrity.

Character: Where in my life is the story I keep replaying, woe is me?

Grace: How have you grown as God as brought you “back home” or “full circle”?