Seasons for a Reason.

Before the new year started, I remember asking God for a simple request, for Fruit to be borne in my life. When things didn't happen the way I had expected, I asked Him- why.

Why the loss of Rainbow. Why the loss of abilities. Why the sorrow and illness and affliction.

Why God, why.

And then I heard a White dove whisper in my ear, that throughout our lives, God has four seasons for us. Spring, summer, autumn, winter- the seasons were made for a reason.

Everybody loves Spring. New buds grow, flowers bloom, and music fills the cool, crisp air. Everybody loves Spring.

Not everybody likes Summer. Some find it too hot. Hard blasts of heat make it sometimes difficult to endure. Not everybody likes Summer.

Everybody likes autumn, too. Fruits ripen- it's harvest time! O, what a joy.

Everybody loves autumn.

But nobody likes Winter. It is too cold here. There is nothing. There is nothing.

Nobody likes Winter.

The White dove told me- In Summer, the hard blast of heat, like our trials and challenges in life, is what is vital to producing good fruit in us. Without the soaring temperatures, the fruit borne would otherwise not be half as sweet. In Winter, on the other hand, after the frenzy of a busy harvest-time in Autumn, all life seems to have ceased... but only few know about the mysteries behind the gift of Rest, and even fewer understand the secret miracles birthed beneath the surface of the cool, wintry frost.

Nobody likes winter because it seems like nothing is happening- but only the wise know that Spring is birthing in the heart of the cold. When there is winter, Spring is near, too.

Fruit is always borne in it's season. And do you realise, that there are not one, but four seasons? Surely bearing good fruit takes not one, but all four of them.

A White dove told me, that sometimes, it is not that God has not answered our prayers, but rather, He sometimes puts us in the seasons we did not expect Him to, but which are best for us. We all want to be in Springtime always, but fail to realise that without the heat of summer which produces maturity in us, and the frost of winter to give us rest, good fruit cannot be borne.

Waiting and delay are a part of God's dealings. He made the seasons for a reason.

I asked God for Fruit, for a wonderful autumn harvest. After all, after Kitesong, I thought- what else can He not do? But little did I realise, God's Fruit is of a different kind. More than what we do, He loves us more for who we are. And so it says in the bible, that the ultimate Fruit is Love, love that comes with 8 other fruits, namely- joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

That is the Fruit which has been borne this season.

At the time when all around seemed to be darkness, and faith flickered like a dying candleflame, the White dove told me, that broken faith that has been tempered in the furnace has a fortitude to endure greater resistance, is quieter, more durable, and indefinitely more Fruitful. The greatest dimensions of faith can be entrusted only to broken vessels, it told me. Great faith that has not been broken turns into presumption. And so the season of heat, of breaking, has a reason too.

Are we able to see that the seasons were made for a reason? That even in Winter and our times of despair, we may be bare, but not barren?

Bare, but not barren...

... because roots take time to grow, too.

Pruning, but not punishment...

...because "He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit; while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it be even more fruitful."

- John 15:2

Loved, but not abandoned...

... "Because He disciplines those He loves."

- Hebrews 12:6a

It's all a matter of Perspective.

Whose eyes are you looking through-God's eyes, or yours?

He made the seasons for a reason.