There are 525,600 minutes in a year (this is a shout-out to musical fans) and that year is broken into many, many seasons. One of the things that had always bothered me about the Christian life was the idea of seasons. Ecclesiastes tells us, famously, that "there is a time of everything"—“a time to give birth and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot…a time to weep and a time to laugh, etc…” – (Ecclesiastes 3). I was always bothered during my spiritual highs because I knew that they would come to an end. Though I would fight tooth and nail for their permanence, and circumvent and suppress every iota of past experience in an attempt to convince myself that this time was “the time” that my spiritual ecstasy would last, it never would.
Though I would have a glorious day of ministry, uncover a new spiritual truth, and sit outside watching a beautiful sunset in the perfect outdoor air while drinking a Coca Cola (the ultimate fulfillment of both my soul and my senses), I always had the creeping sensation in the back of my mind that this high would soon be replaced with an occasion infinitely less glorious—a hungry stomach, clouds instead of a sunset, a spiritual low, and stale indoor air in place of crisp outdoor air.
Theoretically, the idea of seasons should work for the positive as well, in that it should help me to realize that hardships are only temporary, but the benefits I gained from this realization could never match the losses incurred from the realization that my spiritual highs were only temporary as well. For the past three months, however, I have prayed that God would allow me to enjoy the concept of seasons rather than dread it. He has definitely answered that prayer! I now enjoy the fact that the good seasons I experience are only a foretaste of the permanent bliss that is to come and the difficult seasons I encounter will soon give way to more good seasons.
With the concept of seasons in mind, I am both happy and sad to report that one season of my life has come to a close while another new exciting season has began. We have been in Varanasi, (north) India for the past four days on the GEMS (Gospel Echoing Missionary Society) campus with our entire squad for a mini-debrief session and for team changes. Team 14 Feet was absolutely where God wanted me for the season that encompassed the first three months of the World Race and now He has called me to be a member of an entirely new team, excitingly! This new team, I think, has a strong balance of Holy-Spirit boldness and scriptural truth.
My new team is Taryn Neuhor (my team leader, from Georgia), Brandon Forshall (from Illinois), Talitha Rankel (from Canada), Hannah Daggenhart (from North Carolina), and Stephanie Chan (from Canada). Early tomorrow morning, we leave for Kathmandu, Nepal to work with Happy Home Nepal, a children’s home for uncared-for and abandoned street children. India has been excellent, but now is the season for Nepal! We’ll see you in Kathmandu!
