Praynlady's Blessings & Other Fun Stuff: "My Seasons"........

Friday, October 07, 2005

"My Seasons"........

WARNING!!!! This blog is LONG and it is sad. If you are a cry’er you may want to skip this post. If you have questions or comments, please leave them. I’d love to hear from you.

Ecclesiastes 3 (NIV) A Time for Everything
1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
9 What does the worker gain from his toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on men. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. 13 That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

Many people have heard the verses 1-9, but not too many read on to the next few verses. I believe that in life, there are also seasons. I have had many. I believe in these scriptures. I have been working on a (long) short story called, “My Seasons”, for quite some time and had intended to post it around Ian’s birthday. God had other plans. I was given a task to help the hurricane victims. Then, while in the midst of helping out, I had to help my own family prepare to evacuate. God has big plans for me and I am waiting for Him to give me the direction I need to the place He wants me to be. “My Seasons” goes something like this.

As a young child, I was given a season of blissful happiness. I was unaware of things other than what was immediately around me. It was a normal childhood. Until, one day we found out we were moving. Not just around the corner, or to the next city, but to another continent! Man oh man, what a change. We were sent to Salvador, Brazil. I easily made new friends, and began another wonderful season in my life. As a new teenager, I was diagnosed with Scoliosis. Scoliosis is a genetic spinal cord disorder that causes curvature of the spine. There were, at the time, only two methods of repair; surgery-which at the time required a six month stay in a body cast, or a Milwaukee brace-which goes from under the chin to the middle of the buttocks. We chose the brace. I wore it for four and a half years. An interesting season because I had to deal with myself as a whole and amid the suffering of being “different”, I still had to make it through school. It was not so bad, but there were times when I couldn’t do what the others were doing, and there were times when I couldn’t do the things I wanted to do. All in all it wasn’t so bad, but it made it harder to make friends, and especially during those years when it is “required” that you have a boyfriend, well, I guess you get the picture. Many of the boys were intimidated by a girl with metal bars up to her head and chin. Not the most fantastic way to look at this age but still, not so bad. Just another season. Life went on and I had many more seasons that were great and many that were extremely difficult. Some I will live with for the rest of my days and alone, I will face God for them. One of my greatest joys in life is my daughter Kendra. I was an unwed mother! It was a terrible season at first. My family was disappointed in me, my friends were unsure what to do or think, and I was horribly mad at myself. I was miserable. I turned back to God. I had been slowly turning away from Him for many years. I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t drink, I just didn’t believe God could put me through some of the things I had gone through. I used to wonder if He were real. Then on a truly blessed day, Kendra Jayne was born. She was beautiful and it was that day that I realized God had plans for me. He could not create something that beautiful without a purpose. She has now grown to a beautiful young woman with her own “seasons” to deal with and is learning that there is something God wants to use her for as well. A few years later, I entered one of my happiest seasons. I met Paul. Wow, God had incredibly placed the man I would marry right under my nose and I knew immediately that he was “the one”. We were married almost a year later and Kendra had a father and a daddy. I was happy. My next season was when we decided that we wanted to have a child. It was not happening. We tried everything that a couple can try. Medication, surgeries, homeopathic things, and many more I won’t bore you with. Ten years later, while working through a tough season of depression, anger, and resentment towards any persons, including my family, that kept getting pregnant, God answered my prayer. I was pregnant!! WOW!! I could not believe that 10 years had gone by and now, like one of the women in the bible that kept praying for a child, God had said, “Yes, now is the time!” We had a beautiful baby boy. He was born early, with some trying moments for Paul and I as well as the rest of my family. He liked throwing us curves. In every direction. He had some respiratory problems and contracted RSV virus. It dealt us some hard times and he was also put on a S.I.D.S. monitor. This caused many anxious moments for all of us. He wore the monitor for 9 months and seemed to have made it through his own season. He grew to be a beautiful little boy and was just wonderful to be with. He went every where I did for many years. Everyone loved him. He was just special. He could make anyone smile and he loved to talk about everything to anyone. He loved being outdoors, and would play with anyone. He never walked away from anyone without making them a friend. My family loved him, my friends loved him and my neighbors loved him. He was just a really lovable little boy. We loved him for seven years and twelve days. Ian had accomplished whatever it was God created him for in such a short time and then called him home. This was the beginning of the worst season of my life and I pray that another one of this magnitude never finds me. On the day of the accident, which was a Sunday, I received the last hug from him that I would ever get. I cherish that moment. Much to my dismay, a new season was upon me and I was not happy in the least with this one. I believe that I went through all nine verses in one year. We had so many “firsts”. The first Lord’s Supper, the first missed Christmas, the first missed day of school, the first missed Mother’s Day, and so on and so on…….on and on the firsts went. By the grace of God alone, our families, and our friends continued to support us for many months. When everyone else’s lives went back to normal, ours never did. It was no longer normal in any way. Everything was different. I saw things in others that I had not seen before. I saw some turning to Christ for answers, I saw some turn away from Him because there were no answers, I saw questions, I saw new life, I saw death! I had now looked it square in the face. I remember one of the most precious memories of the day after the accident as vividly as if it were just now happening. I asked to hold him. Ian was a very big boy for his age. He was five feet one inch upon his death and weighed 97 pounds. He wore a mens size six shoe. He was just a big boy. Anyway, the nurses pulled a big chair up next to the bed and disconnected him from the traction rods in his head and laid his somewhat stiff body across my lap and into my arms. It was like I was looking at a lifeless body already and my beautiful boy on the inside was already gone. I firmly believe that his spirit had already left to live with Jesus the day before but the body was there for us to have time to say our good byes. I was ready but not willing. I remember specifically, telling God that the spirit may be His but the body was mine and I didn’t want to let go. Then after just a few moments of talking to God about how angry I was and how much pain this was causing Paul and I not to mention what Kendra was going through, I realized something. This new season may not have been of my choosing, but God already had it planned long before I even gave birth to Ian. His time had come to go home. I told God then and there that He could have him. I thanked him for the seven wonderful years we had spent with him and that I would see him again on the other side of Heavens gates. Ian passed away about 35 minutes later. He died at 2:02 pm on the 18th of September, 2000. He was born on Sept. 6th, 1993. 7 years and 12 days was the time it took for God to use Ian, through his short lived life and in his tragic death, in a mighty way! I believe that without knowing it, Ian had planted the seed into the hearts of many people including some in my own family. Paul found Christ, along with several others that I have talked to in the past five years. I lost my son,(well, I didn't really lose him because I know EXACTLY where he is), but others, including my husband, met God. I will never understand this particular season but if I had to simply come up with an answer to help me sleep at night, this would be it. God is preparing me for a mighty work. I believe that God will put me in a position to use all the different seasons I have lived through to benefit His glory and His kingdom before I pass away from this earthly life to live with Him. My seasons are an education. They are the tools, God has used in my life to make me who I am today, that make me who He wants me to be, that make me want to be more like Him. My seasons are a part of the very core of what He is preparing me for. Be it counseling, or teaching, or just to listen to others who have to go through this same horrible season, then I will be prepared to do what He has chosen me to. There is so much more that I could write but as a blog goes, this one is already way too long.
I pray that you will learn from the things that God puts you through and instead of becoming bitter, become better. Allow Him to prepare you for your job, that you may accomplish it and return to Him when your time comes.
I am human, I am a sinner, and I am unconditionally loved by the Creator Himself. I may fall, but He will catch me and even carry me when needed, He will cry with me, He does cry with me and He is and will be my stronghold against all the seasons yet to come.
Ian, you are my gift from God and I will continue forever missing you, but knowing that forever is a limited time this side of heaven. I will love you forever and I will try hard to make you proud of me as a mommy and a child of God.
God Bless.


Copywrite 9/6/05 It is prohibited to copy all or in part for republishing purposes for any reason without prior permission from author.

Comments:
...For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. Prov 19 20-21

Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you.

Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:11

28We are assured and know that [[a]God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose. Romans 8:28


Great blog, my vote is for the BOOK!!! go for it...
i have missed you, thanks for all the prayers, no matter what remember GOD Is GOOOD!!!!!
 
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