Spiritual Seasons

Slowly, I'm working my way through spiritual disciplines I usually shove aside, bury in a busy schedule, or simply ignore.  Disciplines that often slip our minds and rarely find their way into our routines.

Sabbath
Solitude
Seasons
Service

We've spent the last few weeks discovering how to keep an urban Sabbath.  Did you miss it?  Check it out here. Hopefully, we've learned what Sabbath is and what it isn't.  Hopefully we've enjoyed some best of the best.  Hopefully, we've started making some good.

I debated where to go next (in order?) and decided to tackle Seasons BEFORE we get into all the holiday stuff so that maybe we're a bit more prepared to handle them.  Plus, Seasons doesn't necessarily have anything to do with holidays - as we'll see, and I didn't want it to get murky.

photo credit: Ryan Kapp

I've started baby nesting.  It hit me all of a sudden, like a surprise, really, catching me off guard with a full throttle "Let's do this!" kind of enthusiasm.  It hit me hard on a Monday and by Saturday, I was throwing my hands up in frustration because I couldn't just dive in and give myself over to it.  

I grow my family through adoption, you see, so this "nesting" urge is not the same as that last trimester when all the baby clothes get washed and folded AGAIN.  It's the steel-yourself-up kind of nesting that you know might need to last 2 or 3 years; because of all the things adoption is, there's something it's definitely not: fast. 

As I begin to sift through the options and avenues of adoption, my heart beats a little faster and my head gets fuzzy because this time I know what I'm in for: a match that isn't, six inches of paperwork, TB tests, home studies, days you sit with a baby bag by the door only to hear there is no baby, lingering thoughts of children whose birthdays come and go - children who were almost yours, case workers who lose paperwork, transitions, logging miles in the car, meeting after meeting, difficult decisions, hard conversations, struggling for marital unity through it all. 

Hard stuff.  Most of which, it's imperative you keep private for your child's sake, for your family's sake, and the loneliness of carrying so much secret weight makes it a lot heavier. 

So, that's the season I'm in - the "I will adopt again at some point" season.  What about you?  What season are you in?

-preparing a child for college?

-processing childhood hurts?

-healing from a long illness?

-dealing with a new diagnosis in the family?

-just moved and starting over?

-surrounded by littles?

-tween/teen chauffeur?

-between jobs?

-finishing school and on the brink of endless possibilities?

-comforting a spouse who faces death?

These are seasons of life.  Real stages of our everyday existence, and yet - they're more.  Often our "stuck in a moment and can't get out of it" experiences, to quote U2, are more than just here and now.  They are spiritual seasons as well.

The Bible if filled with seasonal stories.  Moses' whole life was divided into significant seasons: Egyptian son, shepherd, Hebrew leader, man of law, etc.  Sampson's time of powerful leadership followed by his season of imprisonment.  Jesus' long maturing followed by his ministry.

The hardest seasons, at least for me, are those where there is nothing for us to do, the waiting seasons, the gearing up for the main event seasons: Paul's time in Egypt, preparing to preach about Christ.  Jesus' young adulthood, where his true identity remained concealed.  Abraham's wandering, where his descendants were still unrealized.  

That's where I find myself.  At the beginning, the pre-amble, the not-yet of what my expanding family might be.  

What season are you in?