As Easter fades in the rear-view mirror, the road ahead definitely looks different to the one behind. The days are shorter and darkness creeps up on me with pink skies and orange sunsets. There is a chill in the air when I first step outside in the morning, and when I close the curtains in the evening. My wardrobe reveals forgotten favourites, hidden away during the hot months of the southern hemisphere summer.
Although I’ve lived in South Africa for half my life, I still find this time of year one of the most confusing. Growing up in the UK, in the north, Easter was all about new life — not just the resurrected life of Jesus, but also of nature. Early snowdrops or bluebells push through the hard, frozen earth, showing off their tenacity, their simple beauty. Daffodils soon follow, golden crowns dancing with the joy of spring. Birds flit back and forth, searching for nesting material, preparing for new broods.
There, the days get longer and a little warmer. The sun brightens the dull grey skies of winter. The clocks spring forward, exuberantly embracing the excitement of a coming summer.
My social media news feeds are full of pictures of spring scenes; my friends are feeling rejuvenated after the enforced hibernation of winter. New projects are announced; new plans are made.
Meanwhile, here in South Africa, we breathe a sigh of relief that the intensity of summer heat and humidity is at last loosening its grip. Swallows gather, not in search of nesting sites, but in anticipation of the long journey across countries and continents.
There is a disconnect between my expectations for April and my current lived experience! My memories don’t match my present. I’m swimming upstream, disoriented and confused.
“There is a season (a time appointed) for everything and a time for every delight and event or purpose under heaven —”
Ecclesiastes 3:1
Have you ever felt as though your life with God is like that? Everyone else is talking about spring, getting excited about the new things that are appearing out of nowhere, while, in your heart, you know you’re entering the quieter time of summer’s end? As though you’re preparing to hibernate, while everyone around you is getting ready to go out and conquer the world?
It can be quite discouraging. Until we realise God has a season and time appointed for everything. Including for the things He plans to do in and through us.
The Easter sensation that I’m out of sync with myself and everyone else doesn’t last more than a day or two. I scroll past the spring buds and sprouting leaves, content to know that others are blinking in the sun of a new season. I embrace the softer (later!) sunrises and the gentle breezes.
The season I’m in isn’t a mistake or upside-down simply because others are experiencing the opposite. Nor are my inbuilt expectations and earlier experiences reasons to fight my reality. I live where I live, and now it is autumn; I am where I am with my ever-loving Father, and He knows what He’s doing.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Something else I’ve discovered in my discomfort — no matter the season, there is always new growth and new beauty to be found. My English friends and family might have the crocus and the camelia; I have the cosmos.
I have a choice — to wish I was some place or sometime elsewhere; or to discover and enjoy the delights of where I am.
I love how the Amplified Version of the Bible expands on this idea.
“He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]”.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Not only does our Father make everything beautiful at the right time, He showers us with what is appropriate, what is necessary, for the season we are in; His gifts delight and satisfy simultaneously.
And just as the seasons of nature are constrained within the pattern of a twelve-month period, so the seasons of our lives pass within the context of eternity. Nothing but His purposes satisfy; nothing b