Life, and its seasons

As I listened to the soul stirring lines from the theme song which my strategy team put together for my first novel, Burning Hurt,  as we brainstormed ideas for the first public presentation of the book coming up soon, I felt like weeping as I pondered at how far God has brought me, even as the vision for the book unfolds everyday. I am realizing powerfully every day, that my raison d'etre for writing that book goes beyond a mere need to entertain, to a desire to cause life transformation, paradigm shifts, and better/informed decision making processes. I am digressing a bit because this post is not about Burning Hurt, at least not today. In the meantime, please enjoy the theme song on this You Tube link, and share your views: http://bit.ly/Yba05o. 

One of the things that I have come to learn about life is that, it is punctuated by seasons.  My life certainly has gone through seasons of growth, as well as dormancy, and in each season of my life, I have had to accept change, grow, and learn its accompanying lessons. Sometimes, I accepted willingly, sometimes not so willingly. When God wants to move you to the next level of your life, you will experience lots of pressure and challenges at every change curve which, if well embraced, takes you to the next phase of your life. 

As a newly wedded woman, contrary to our plans to wait for two years before having a baby, I found myself pregnant in the first month of the marriage, lol. Naive as I was, and incredible as it sounds, I knew nothing about birth control because I was not sexually active before marriage; before I could learn, in order to keep to the two year plan to wait after marriage, I was already pregnant! So, I was thrust into motherhood with a bang! As a new mother, I found myself having to experience a long season-in my estimation, of having to stay at home with really young babies because hubby and I had mutually agreed that we did not just want to throw the children on a nanny and leave their upbringing to them. In those days, my young babies and maid were my companions during the day. Finances were pretty tight in those days but we managed and God kept us. On the days we could afford a feast fit for kings, we ate happily, and on days we could only afford the barest, we still ate happily. Growing up, I was not given to hungering after things that I could not afford; I have learned to take things, one day at a time, and be content with what I do have, knowing that, the things I cannot afford today, I can have tomorrow; if tomorrow comes, and I still can't have it, then God did not intend it to be mine. Do not get me wrong, I had aspirations to greatness, and believed that God will cause things to turn around when the time came, even as we worked towards achieving our goals in life, but I was not going to make myself miserable and unhappy today over the things I could not yet afford. We had our fair share of advice from well meaning close relatives and others about why I should go out and find a job and at a point, it began to bother me. I allowed their unsolicited advice to pierce through and I began to whine to hubby that I felt I was not contributing anything-what with my second class upper degree in English, and my writing skills, plus my aspirations, I felt I could do more, be more.  As at that time, I was doing freelance contributions to some publications, for which I got paid, but to me, the money was peanuts, lol. I read widely and voraciously in that season which I felt was like a dormant one in my growth process. I thank God for giving me a man who knows how to help me get things back in perspective when I begin to get irrational, because he pointed out that this was just a season in my life, and that it was something we had mutually agreed on, hence, what people were saying about my not finding a job outside the house should not bother me. It did not lower my worth in God’s eyes, nor his for that matter. He believed in me, and believed that I was going somewhere to happen, when the time came. It was difficult, because, my natural motivation urged me to be up, out and away, but my primary responsibilities in those early years of marriage and family determined that season of my life. I looked at the Bible and saw this sage advice in Ecclesiastes, "To everything there is a season" (Eccl. 3:1). Naturally, life progresses from rainy, to dry, harmattan seasons, and in our lives, too, there is a progression of change from one season to another. As surely as seasons direct the course of nature, so they direct the courses of our lives. I learned, in that season of my life to accept where I was, and be content. I came out of that season with a  lesson  emblazoned powerfully in my heart that, no time spent, nurturing children, is ever wasted, but rather, it is an eternal investment, which is not quantifiable in financial terms. This understanding, brought me peace, and as the apostle, Paul said, "For I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content" (Phil. 4:11). I  learned to cooperate with this season of life, and I became less anxious or frustrated.

In our marriage, we also moved from a season where we were still getting to know more about each other, with its teething problems, to a season of greater understanding. Just as I became pregnant with an unexpected 4^th pregnancy, after we had thought our third baby would be the last, my hubby felt a strong leading to resign from paid employment. I was worried because, we had two children in school, I was now working as staff writer with a popular women’s magazine trying to develop myself further, and I wondered at God’s timing. It was like, exchanging certainty for uncertainty. Well, after a while of inner doubts and struggles, I decided to trust God along with hubby and see what would unfold. That was another trying season of our lives, a season in which I lost the baby at 8 months after going into labor prematurely, almost bleeding to death; we experienced trouble from within and without, and all sorts, but again, I realized that I needed to calm down, and trust God alongside the priest of my home, and when I ceased from my own internal struggles, God took over. God caused a turnaround in the fledgling business and the little which we entrusted Him with, He breathed life upon it and before our eyes, we saw the business unfold and grow. From a bedroom office, we got an external office and began to expand. That story is a true attestation to the fact that God honors His word and can lift any man from the dunghills of life, to sit among the princes of His people.

Physically, seasons are bound to occur-you cannot stop that, and time, measured in years, is the director of our ever changing paths in life from when we are very little, to when we edge closer to immortality and ever so slowly, our inexperience and naivety about life receives a stamp of experience, which results in maturity.  I am now in a season whereby I work with hubby in the business and I am also evolving as I understand more, what God wants me to do. Each day, the picture becomes clearer. I have not arrived, because God is still taking me from trivia, which can be so tiring, but necessary as one brings up young children, builds a home, and career, to a place of understanding of just how I can be God’s woman. I have learned that, with each season, my responsibilities change, and I am learning to flow along with each change, keeping in view the harvest that would happen in seasons to come.

I have learned to embrace the change which each season of life brings knowing that my present priorities will change and this season will pass. I understand that I am a WIP (work in progress) and that everyone is in a differing stage of development, hence, I am not in competition with anyone because we are not all meant to produce similar crops. I have learned to genuinely celebrate the successes of other people, because I have a deep understanding that our paths in life differ, and I also trust that as I celebrate others, I will be celebrated some day as well. Hence, I am not under pressure to be someone else- I am myself, and I am comfortable in my own skin. Note, however, that, your seasons may be determined by a force external to you, but the onus is on you to determine just what your reaction to your season will be. God determines our season; we are to tend what has been planted in that season. I am making full use of this season of my life, where I am learning how to be the kind of wife, that God designed me to be, where my children are yet to fly the nest, where my first child is about to enter into the secondary school, where we are building and trusting God to establish our business not just for today, but for posterity, where I am learning in order to come into my own as a writer, and above all, where I am learning how I can be God’s woman and impact my world in a way that brings Him honor. I do not bother my head with the futility of wishing that I was someone else, somewhere else and doing something else because God made me the way He did, in order to use me in a way which best suits His purposes. That, I am finding out with clarity each day.

 What season of life are you in, and what are you doing in order to make the most of it, and learn the lessons that it has to offer? Are the seasons we consider dormant, truly dormant, or, are there lessons to be garnered, even in these seemingly 'dormant' seasons of life?  Do share yours.