Year 24 of my life was a growing pain of a year. One of my absolute favorite people whom I loved so dearly boarded a flight to heaven. I closed the doors to a ballgame I loved so much and it was sneakily knitted within my identity. Closing this chapter caused some gears to shift to the new ordinary days of my life. My close teammates and some of my best friends moved miles away to start beautiful journeys of their own, and it was hard to figure out a new day-to-day communication with the people I love so much. I was on the last leg of graduate school which challenged me mentally and caused me to confusingly investigate “what really do you want to do with your life?” I started doing job interviews which in the end, left me defeated, depleted, and discouraged.
Life is hard. I share these things because I know you have experienced something similar. Despite the wreckage, I have found small & big bits of joy in every season. I have found great motivation in knowing softball is not the only thing I’m good at. I have enjoyed facetime and watching my teammates live out their dreams and callings outside of the roster lineup. Friendships have grown deeper in their roots. Grad school instilled a lesson that I do not have to be put into a box with my creativity and this challenged me to write blogs like this one.
So many critical lessons come out of tough & trying seasons. I challenge you to sit with the hardships you have been facing and find the ways your heart is being stretched through the lens of God.
God is always working. He whispered a word, “soar” in my heart for year 24. To fully trust His current and navigation. Little did I know, it was going to be a heck of a bumpy ride.
But in year 25, He has been nudging the word “savor.” To truly enjoy the aroma of Him. To completely be present in His goodness. The preparation of having an anonymously hard season harvests our hearts for a fresh field of blooms. Imagine a year with violent storms, and it wears and tears the gardens. But the roots are still intact because the plants did everything in their might to stay intact. The storms brought floods of water. It renewed the soil clean & transferred & grew seeds left and right. No doubt the next season would bring an abundance of fresh blossoms.
In seasons of tough storms, perhaps ask what is God teaching you? What is starting to blossom in your life? What is God ripening in your life after your tough season of storms?
Some may be experiencing a monstrous blossom of well-tended flowers. Some may have God still planting: the ones where you have not yet seen the little sproutings come to the surface, but you can feel it. So perhaps you are right along with me, or somewhere else on the journey. Each one of us will be in seasons of thundering rain storms & thirsty droughts while others will be in fields of blossoms. Vice versa. This is the journey of life.
So year 24 had some lows & soaring into the unknown, but God is showing me year 25 is a year to “savor.”
To savor the fresh blooms of marrying the absolute love of my life, my best friend and my favorite person. To savor fresh blooms of a strengthened heart & a tuned perspective of His faithfulness after a trying year.
To savor new adventures and new chapters with my family.
What are you called to savor next?
Let’s soar through the hardships & savor the up & coming God has harvested in us as preparation. A grueling storm brings ripe soil where many blossoms will come to fruition.
Going through the 24 got me to the 25.
Galatians 6:9 (NIV) "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
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