For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 NLT
Life is this series of simultaneous hellos and goodbyes. As I’ve embraced seasons of newness, it’s often bittersweet. There’s an inherent grieving process as I head into fresh beginnings. What I’ve found is if we’re not careful, how we manage our goodbyes can taint our transition into the next season.
The book of Ecclesiastes contains wisdom about seasons. There’s a time for everything; A season for releasing and a season for embracing something new, but the tricky part is that they can happen simultaneously… Overlapping seasons are more complex than a simple stop and start.
December is the best time of year to see this on display. We rush to say hello to the new year. We buy planners and start to prepare for our new year resolutions. We’re anxious to start fresh, but we fail to sit with the year that we’ve just made it through. We don’t properly say goodbye before we turn the page. We neglect pausing to reflect on lessons learned and how we could navigate the coming days and seasons better.
If we’re not careful, we can walk the dust from previous seasons into our future and spoil something beautiful. So this year, I’m encouraging you to try something different. Let this December be filled with mindfulness… Gratitude of how far God has carried you… Find opportunities to praise God for His protection and provision… Celebrate the ending in its fullness, so you can walk into the future unhindered and free.
