1449 I Didn’t Want This

I checked the weather today. You know what I found? Excessive heat warnings. Extreme weather alerts. Stupid hot temperatures. Do you know why I checked the weather? Because I also realized 4 months from today we will all be getting ready for Christmas. And guess what … it won’t be hot then. In fact, we’ll probably be complaining about how cold it was when we were shopping. We will probably be yelling, “shut the door, you’re letting the heat out!” But today … no, today we’re not saying that, are we? Today, we’re complaining about totally different circumstances. Shut the door, you’re letting the cold air out. I can’t stop sweating. I’m melting out here. It’s miserable. Dang, are we just going to complain our way through life? It’s always too hot or too cold. We continually want what we don’t have and completely miss what we do have. Here we are waking up to a million things that are miraculously so right, and yet we want to focus on the fact that it’s too hot? Pretty soon we’ll wake up to another million things that are miraculously so right, yet we will focus on the fact that it’s too cold. Honey, seasons will be what seasons will be. You don’t get to control that. Weather changes just like life changes. If circumstances determine your happiness, you’re going to be motion sick with the ups and downs and miss that you’re on a beautiful ride. Many years ago my mentor instructed me to listen to one of the original motivational speakers, Jim Rohn. Jim had a 6 CD set called “The Art of Exceptional Living”. Daily, I listened to these same 6 CDs on repeat until I nearly knew them by memory. One quote I memorized was, “Life is like the changing seasons. You cannot change the seasons, but you can change yourself. Therein lies the opportunity to live an extraordinary life, the opportunity to change yourself.” Learning this, I began seeing the changing seasons differently. I began accepting change for what it was. The weather changed, life changed. The seasons came and went, our kids came and went. I couldn’t stop it, but I could lean into it. I couldn’t change it, but I could change how I received it. Changing how I received the changes of life changed me. It took away my tendency to complain about circumstances. It eliminated my useless worry. It lightened my load and eased my burden. It freed me to find unspeakable joy even in the harsh winters of life where nothing was growing. It showed me the beauty in the days where the heat made it too hard to do anything, but happiness was still available. And eventually, I stopped dreading the changes and hating the seasons. I can’t change it, but I can change. I can change how I look at it. I can change how I talk about it. I can change how I wake up to it. And when I change, everything changes. We weren’t created to just endure life, we were created to enjoy this life! Are you? Are you enjoying life here and now, or are you just enduring another season you didn’t wish for and are waiting for the next? Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8:
“For everything there is a season,

a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.

A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.

A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.

A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.

A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.

A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.

A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.

A time for war and a time for peace.”
After all of this, we read verses 11 & 12, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.