I have been thinking so much lately about the different seasons of life. I love the seasons in the weather, but sometimes I don’t like the different seasons of life. Right now in Indiana, it’s beautiful. The trees are the most beautiful colors of reds, yellows and oranges. Fall is harvest time. Fall is a season that goes out beautifully, but what comes next people don’t like. Winter is dark, gray, and cold. What is happening beneath the surface though is something beautiful. Things are taking root. Things are strengthening their roots and seeds of something beautiful are growing. We just can’t see it. YET! We will see it, it will just take a few weeks and months to see! It is happening below the surface though. Of that we can be assured.
Looking back over my life, I never enjoyed the journey. I can remember as a kid just wanting to get to 16 to drive. To just get to graduation. To just get to college, which never happened. To just get married. To just have a baby, which also didn’t happen. Always trying to fast forward to that next big thing I thought would bring happiness. Always trying to fast forward through the hard times. Can you relate? We mistakenly think if I just get the guy or the girl. If I just get the promotion at work. If I just get the house or the car. If I just have a certain amount of money in the bank I will be happy and fulfilled. However, we miss so much in the journey. The middle can be messy and we don’t like that. God has been dealing with me lately about my journey! I can’t shake it, I can’t get away from it. Our happiness and growth don’t come from things that we think will bring happiness!
I am realizing that my life is on fast forward and I am missing so much. I am not allowing myself to feel. I am not allowing myself to grow. I have not allowed myself to heal and really figure out who I am, and what I want. We are a generation of right now, and that’s not a positive thing about us. We must stop and allow ourselves to feel the emotions of the season, even if people judge us for that.
I must share something that happened to me on Friday. I start every day with a gratitude practice. I have a notebook that I write in. I like things in order so I go in sequential order each day. Friday was busy for me and I must have been hurrying as I set down at my desk. I began to write, got about halfway down the page, and wanted to see something from Thursday so I turned back a page. It was blank. Back another page, it was blank. I had somehow flipped ahead probably 6 weeks in my journal. As I set staring at those blank pages, something just came alive inside of me and said this is what you do. You miss so many beautiful unwritten things in life by trying to hurry through the seasons and days of life. I set there speechless because this is exactly what I do. How many amazing things in life have I missed?
You see, I have had four life changing seasons in my adult life. I did not like one second of them. They were hard. They were painful, but on this side of it, beautiful things have happened in my life. Funny how we can see that looking back, but we cannot see that while we’re in it. I found forgiveness and healing, growth, education, who was really there for me, who really loved me. All from those hard, hard times. Those things don’t always come when we’re living life on the mountain top, or trying to. We don’t get clarity when life is always “good”.
Great things do not come without reward! At 47, I finally get that. My word for 2022 is journey. I can’t get away from it. If I don’t slow down and enjoy every day of the journey, I am going to miss the opportunity to add value to people. I am going to miss the opportunity to be all God called me to be. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and wish I would have done more! I want to get to the end of my life, rest my head on my pillow that last time and know I did everything I could. I want people to walk by my casket and say because of her, I never gave up. Because of her I became all I could be and lived life to the fullest. I want people to say she fought a good fight and took everything thrown at her with grace and let it make her better.
So let me ask you, are you like me and fighting the journey? I hope you really think about that!
With love for you all,
Shauna
Shauna's Sisters 