Embracing New Seasons

It’s a new season.”

We sang that over and over, a spontaneous worship moment at the Pursuit Conference, and my heart wanted to sing it from a rooftop.

“It’s a new season, you’re making all things new.”

A year ago, I went to the Pursuit conference on the tail end of a very bad year. Years really. Years of living in a shadow, a dark place of insecurity, of depression. I wasn’t fulfilled in my work or my art. I hated where I lived. I was fighting really sick lies from the enemy.

Things like… You’ll never have a life. You’ll never be able to handle what it takes to be an adult, what it takes to be successful. You’re going to drop the ball. You’re going to mess it all up.

All these lies that made me feel like I would be caged. Forever.

I went to the conference with this whisper of a prayer for friends. And He showed up, dropped people right into my life. We talked about how we felt we were on the edge of a new season. Oh how I felt that. How I desperately wanted that.

I left the conference ready for the change. I felt God rearranging my heart. I knew something was coming. I could feel it.

But the problem was I had an idea in my head of what that looked like. And my bad attitude magnified when it didn’t come. And didn’t come. And didn’t come.

I spent a portion of last year frustrated. Life just didn’t go as I had planned. There was less time to do the things I wanted. I kept wondering why I was still living where I was, why I hadn’t moved yet, why I wasn’t doing what I loved.

Because that was the change I had felt coming. A new city. A new community. A fresh start.

And it just wasn’t happening.

I wanted that new season so badly. I wanted to run far from the time I refer to as the Dark Years.

In the meantime I started saying yes to every opportunity to go. To take every trip I could and step out of my comfort zone when possible. To experience new places and meet new people and try new things.

I was chatting with a friend recently and she said, “You are a completely different person than you were last year at this time. You have grown so much.”

And she was absolutely right. In the midst of my complaining and whining, in my frustration, in all the times I felt like I was still stuck, when I felt like change wasn’t happening at all, God was working something out.

Sometimes moving forward doesn’t always look the way we think. Moving on doesn’t necessarily look like transplanting your life. I think it’s being brave enough to start over, right where you are.

The time is going to pass anyway.

Being back at the conference, a year later, was just affirmation. Like a guidepost on my journey. It’s like He was telling me, Yes, I am GOOD. Look at where you were last year and look at where you are now. Look at all I’ve brought you through. Look at what I’ve done IN you. 

I haven’t moved away and I am still working a job that doesn’t fulfill my heart.

Still, the new season is here. But it always has been. It’s not about feeling. It’s about choosing to shut the door on one chapter and keep the blank page open ever before Him.

And gosh I need to learn that.

I’m the one that writes in books and underlines my favorite passages and dog-ears pages I want to come back to.

And I think I’ve been doing that with my past. I’ve been marking the wrong parts of the story.

I wholeheartedly believe that every part of our stories matter and deserve to be told. I think that the darkest places produce the most hope.

But I think we need to take some of the bookmarks out of the story. Remember it, but not constantly remind ourselves. Embrace it, but hold it loosely.

And dare to let God turn a new page, start a new chapter. Dare to believe that He already has and we just need to let Him write the story. 

 

Tell me, girls. What parts of your story are you re-reading? What bookmarks do you need to remove? I’d love to know. Share in the comments. <3

 

*Image by Jordan Sanchez via Unspash