The Balance of Seasons

This week the Kansas City area saw it's first snowfall.. albeit just a smattering of the white stuff.. and I reacted in my typical "I hate winter" fashion. Now many like my son love winter and the snow but I simply don't. As I pondered my week I thought of the verse from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes that begins with this verse:

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven"

The list of seasons included in the following verses includes a variety of events: birth and death; sowing and reaping; weeping and laughing; speaking and listening; love and hate; war and peace; and others. What struck me in the list was the contrasts. My guess is that most of us like the birthing and laughing but not so much the other more negative aspects of life like death and weeping.

Perhaps life is not really life unless it is balanced out with trials and hardship? Maybe we would not really know love if we had not experienced hate; and maybe the word "peace" would be meaningless with the word "war". I am beginning to appreciate how life like the year has it seasons.

Of course the yearly seasons are not always predictable.. sometimes summer weather looks a bit like fall of spring.. even though we expect one thing we often get something else. I guess a secret of living a contented life is to understand this idea of times and seasons and to not get too disappointed when it snows in October.. did I say that? I hate snow

I guess what I am trying to get at.. I seem to be rambling a bit.. is to not lose hope in those difficult life seasons.. and remember this verse from Hosea 6:

"Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth."

Though the season may be dry.. He will come with refreshing rains. Though the times are dark.. He will come with glorious sunlight. Hang in there friend. God is faithful. There is a balance to the seasons of our lives.