For Everything There is a Season (Day 1 from an untitled collection)

 




                           

         I’ve reached a time in my life when I’m faced with so many changes taking place and decisions that have to be made, that I feel overwhelmed. Every day has been a challenge. The last few days, since the weather has turned cold, I go to bed hurting and get up the same. I have to give up things I love to do because my body tells me I can’t do them anymore. I look in the mirror and don’t recognize the woman looking back at me. There are more years behind me than those yet to come. Sometimes I feel as though all I have is memories as I say goodbye to yet another loved one. My name is Old Age, but my heart is still young. If you have not been there yet don’t worry your day will come. Your heavenly Father confirmed this in Genesis 8:22, “As long as the earth endures seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never cease” (NIV).  Just as God provided for the seasons of the earth, He has set seasons for the days of our lives.

            I’m not talking about an emotional season, yet I do believe they exist. In Ecclesiastes we are told, “There is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” (3:4 NIV),  When Jacob died, Joseph “observed a seven day period of mourning for his father” (Genesis 50:10).  Nor, am I talking about a period of hard times, for Jesus told us, “In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NIV).  Our earthly life is subject to everything from illness to heartbreak until God calls us home. It’s the time in-between that I am talking about, for you see our life span has already been sovereignly determined by God before we were born; “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16 NIV).

           
            I believe life begins at conception, why else would King David in prayer for God to search his heart would say, “For you created my inmost being you knit me together in my mother’s womb . . . I am fearfully and wonderfully made . . . My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body . . .” (Psalm 139: 13-16 NIV). King David was acknowledging to God that He had created him in his mother’s womb and that he knew him even then. When I was pregnant for my son I dreamed of what he would become, but I did not KNOW him, but God did, He knew everything about him. What is the most amazing and wonderful part is that while God was forming him my baby was getting to know me! At 24 weeks he could hear my heartbeat, my breathing, and could hear the blood flow moving through the umbilical cord. And around 25-26 weeks he was responding to my voice with an increased heart rate. Like all expecting moms without even realizing it I would gently stroke my stomach and my baby would respond by moving. By the time I was in my third trimester he was kicking things off my stomach, even then he was terribly active. As my baby continued to grow I became more concerned, you see my husband had walked out on me right after I told him we were going to have a child. I became despondent and cried a great deal of the time, my doctor was concerned and put me on an antidepressant, as soon as I was able to understand what they could do to my baby I immediately stopped taking them. It was then that I learned that my baby was able to feel my emotions by chemical signals through the placenta, the medication could have an effect on how my baby was developing and my depression could cause problems in his development after he was born! I had a long talk with my doctor and he gave me some things to do to get control of my emotions, the last thing I ever wanted to do was harm my baby.  I will never forget the day he was born, I was alone in the labor room, as my parents waited in the room down the hall. The nurse had just come in to tell me they were doing fine and that in spite of my dad telling her he was fine he was reading his magazine upside down and that my mother had wanted to come back to be with me but it was against the rules; then she told me it would take a while and I needed to relax. I can remember feeling, just as I had been throughout my pregnancy, so alone. The nurses were preparing for a premature birth; the doctor said I was in my 38th week, so there was an incubator being set up in the delivery room.  My time was cut short for as she was leaving the room my water broke. I was only in labor for about an hour until they rushed me to the delivery room and called the doctor.  “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world” (John 16:21 NIV). My son was born at 19 ½ inches long, weighed 6 pounds 7 ½ ounces, and was perfectly healthy.

I wasn’t walking with the Lord at that time but I came to realize how much He had been protecting us. My Grandmother shared a scripture with me that she had prayed over my sister and me since our father died, Psalm 121:7-8, “The LORD will keep you from all harm he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forever” (NIV).  She told me God would not give me more than I could handle and that everything I was going through has a purpose. To be honest with you I couldn’t see a purpose in my husband abandoning us could possibly have, but I loved my grandmother and I trusted her, therefore I believed her. Years later after I began my walk with the Lord He lead me to Romans 5:3-6, “. . . We also rejoice in our suffering because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly” (NIV).  As I said before this is a story about the seasons of our life, and our life begins at conception, for that reason God wanted to leave you with no doubt; that’s why I have shared the most private time of my life. 



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