The night’s getting late, so I don’t have time to beat around the bush with this very random mid-summer thought: winters in the midwest are rough. Especially the past several in Northern Indiana. It kind of makes my stomach turn even writing about this right now–in late July–with crickets chirping and fireflies glowing outside my office window.

There’s obviously nothing that can be done about the weather, so it’s fruitless and wasteful of time/energy to gripe about it. But this year was pretty miserable. What made it most…traumatic…was not so much the degree of cold and gloom, but the longevity of cold and gloom. By February, anyone breathing and feeling in the local population I reside is generally over it and ready for warmth and longer days with sun involved.

So when snow is falling down and piling up en masse throughout March and April, the pain cycle is very much in effect: Immobilization turns into denial. Denial becomes anger. Anger into depression. Some people never even get to acceptance…and move to Texas (Hi Mom and Dad).

For example, in late March, amidst mountains of snow in the parking lots throughout my hometown, below freezing temperatures, and a barrage of school and office closings, scores of high school and college students will return from their spring break trips in heavenly Key West, Cancun, San Diego, etc. Hit the mall some Saturday afternoon during this time of year and you’ll know spring break had just wrapped because it’s a walking sea of sun-kissed skin, beach-bleached hair and shorts-wearing. A PacSun with skinny, teen legs.

Oh, did you catch the ‘shorts-wearing’ thing?

Thirteen degrees outside with snowflakes the size of throw pillows, falling sideways from the Oh-I’m-going-to-lose-my-face freezing wind.

The situation is this: these kids–understandably–have just experienced a glorious climate for five to seven days somewhere not in Indiana and they’re now ready to experience a glorious climate back home. So they dress that way. Even in a markedly un-glorious season, where short-wearing outside the home or gym is nothing but physiologically regrettable.

When I watched this spectacle most recently, I thought: No matter how badly these kids want Northern Indiana to be warm, dressing for ‘warm’ wasn’t going to make Spring come any faster. They could wear short-sleeves all day in attempts to will the next season into existence, but until the current season’s over, they are only going to be miserable.

The concept of “seasons” has been particularly important for me to understand, identify and accept over the past few years. I’m learning to accept and respect the famous verse in Ecclesiastes about seasons and how they are all made beautiful in their own time. Not mine. Not anyone’s.

Over the past few years, I’ve sat in a couple of very painful seasons where I’ve had to live through hurt I’ve caused others (most notably to the extent of it ultimately leading to a very painful divorce), the hurt I’ve had placed on me, tremendous loss, loneliness, sadness, shame and guilt. I’ve wanted to do anything and everything to get out of those unpalatable places.

And I certainly tried. I hoped for and pursued more-than-platonic relationships with women; I tried keeping myself super busy (distracted?) with friends and activities; I poured myself into work and expected the fruit of a healthy income to pacify my voids. But I’d get into those things and realize–not only are they not giving me what (I think) I want, but they’re actually slowing me down from getting to the place my heart longs to be.

Not unlike the shorts-wearing kids in the mall, just because I was doing certain things to push a season along, those things didn’t force the next season to arrive any sooner.

In his book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero writes:

I prefer the notions of seasons to stages when describing our life in Christ. We don’t control the seasons; they happen to us. Winter, spring, summer, and fall come to us whether we like it or not.

I tend to believe that the season I am currently in is a product of the season I came out of. And the season I am heading into (at some point) will be the product of the events — good, bad or otherwise — happening in the present. And though my decisions can sometimes affect the timing of my personal seasons, God’s best timing really is up to him (Act 1:7).

**As stated earlier and maybe a caveat to what Scazerro says above, I do believe if I can do things to slow down the process, when I’m living by my own desires/perceived needs and getting off the path that really would get me to where God wants me to go more directly. This is also why I’ve come to believe everything happens for a purpose–for what it was created to do or be. There are tons of things I do daily that are not purposeful, but a choice.**

This blog is named A Salient Season because one of the most critical things I’ve learned (especially over the past couple of years) is the importance of knowing there is purpose and value in every season of our lives. Salient means “notable, crucial, important, essential, vital, pivotal” and if we see the current place that we’re in as those things–preparation for our NEXT place–it’s a lot easier to not only take this time more seriously and intentionally.

And relax.

I’ve mentioned James 1:4 in previous posts because it’s a remarkably refreshing and inspiring promise to me: “Let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing. (AMP)”

Patience isn’t exactly a great time when we’re ready to move out of an undesirable situation; but to know that a loving God who delights in us far more than we delight in ourselves is making things beautiful in his time (not ours) should be at least somewhat soothing. Especially when we look at it the way I just did.

Who knows what the next season looks like. It could be warm, cozy and sunny. Or it could be an even worse storm. Either way, what we are doing with what we have and where we are now is preparing us for where we’re going, later. And I have to believe (after trying and coming up short on a variety of other alternatives) that our decision to endure, trust, hope (I Cor. 13:7), pray, serve and wait now — without a self-mandated timeframe — will adequately (fully) prepare us for whatever lies ahead.