Different Seasons

Do you know who hears about “different seasons?” I’ll try not to stick entirely with my own experience and remember that others hear it as well, but generally I think of Kindergartners and mothers. The point is typically that you can’t do what you want when you want to, and right now you must focus on other things. It seems additionally common to hear it isn’t a season to write.

How can I tackle this subject and still cheer on writing, even times when it is the most difficult? Watch me try.

It is true. Sometimes you can’t write. Some times you’ve got to earn that bread, or bake that bread, or eat that bread. For many of us sometimes we’ve got to watch a little one (or two) grind that bread defiantly into his ear. At such times, you’re probably not typing away, and that’s ok.

It’s ok to take a break from writing for far lesser reasons too. There is no law, “Thou shalt write.” The world carries on.

But things aren’t a dire as we sometimes make them to be either. It rains, but maybe it isn’t pouring. You may lack leisure, but you can jot down a few notes for later. You can think through phrases like some hum tunes. You can imagine a better scenario for your favorite TV show.

Sure, free time can be writing time, and lack of free time can mean lack of writing, but seasons are full of fodder for the future also. Time to grow and gather experience. Still, guess what, that’s not the encouragement I’d like to focus on right now.

These seasons help us to prepare, not only for current or future writing, but for what is even better: the time when seasons will cease and perfection will be restored. The present time prepares us for eternity. I don’t know how or to what extent, but I believe it to be true.

It is part of a great cycle of forgiveness. You fall short, you confess, and you are forgiven. You overstep, you confess, you are forgiven. You are weak, you confess, and, that’s right, our Lord God takes the time to step in and love you anyway. He speaks to you through His Word and tends with the gifts of the Church. He attaches you to something greater, more whole, and eternally living–His Son. Another breath and another day that the Lord has made and prepared beforehand for you.

This is a season of the Lord. Call me a literalist, but doesn’t that make it a season of words?

He takes your words and lets them be part of the story of the world. He also takes your lack of words and does the very same thing. It is ok to write. It is ok to not write. It is ok to struggle and mourn our losses–even losses of time–and it is ok to discipline our bodies and souls.

I’m in a time I shouldn’t be writing. It isn’t because I have infant twins. It isn’t because I have my other kiddos either. I have one of the best reasons in the world: it’s my husband’s turn to write!

In the meantime, I’m gathering ideas, expressions, and relearning what it is to play with words.(Let’s love words!) And I get to remember that others are writing, too, for the benefit of the world! For now, I’ll get my Kindergartener on and play with words.

2 Comments

Filed under As Christian Writers, Question Asked, Writer Troubles, Writer's Life

2 Responses to Different Seasons

  1. Jenna Thompson

    This really resonates! Thank you!

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