Dark Room

Dear Elizabeth, I like to think I have a good memory. However, I don’t remember much of when I was in the womb. If am being completely honest, I don’t remember anything at all. 9 months and not a memory. Guess I can’t have it all. Some babies stay 10 months, others far less but the set time is 9 months. From the moment we are conceived, we are born into a world of set times. How long we will be in the womb, how long to breastfeed (can you imagine if that was a forever thing?), how long in preschool and so on and so forth. It seems like the very nature of our lives is based upon time lines or what I would like to call, seasons.

The Lord set a definite time, saying, “Tomorrow the Lord will do this thing in the land.” Exodus 9:5

I wonder if towards the 9 months I got agitated like, “yo, it’s time” or I just felt someone yank me and I was like “I wasn’t reeeeeadddyy” as I was pulled out into a space I never knew. Whatever the case, it was time and I had to get out. Whether I was well prepared and had said good bye to my surrounding or was unexpectedly pulled out. You ever feel like that though, like something was “too soon”. I feel that a whole lot. Like there were conversations to be had, projects to do but then again, on whose timeline was I referring to. Looking back at all my ‘too soon’, moments, I am certain that the season was over and whether I liked it or not, I had to leave. When autumn comes the leaves will fall whether we like it or not. It goes the same for when we feel that it’s about time something happened, like how it’s about time we were out of a pandemic, about time we got or achieved something. We need to wait it out, the leaves only fall when it’s autumn, shaking the tree won’t make Autumn come any sooner.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” Ecclesiastes 3:1

King Solomon, from the bible (too many series out there about Kings these days) puts it so well. It’s often read in funerals to comfort us that someone’s ‘season’ is over and it’s a season of death but there is more to it than the finality of life but more so its continuity. For as there is a time to die, there is also a time to be born, a time for war, a time for peace. Seasons. Everything we go through is seasonal. Our education is from one level to another, relationships, emotions, work ... I have learned to be able to ride the wave of each season. I will have my coat on in winter and my shorts in the summer. I will cry when it’s time to mourn and dance at the celebration. I will invite new friends and say goodbye to old ones. It’s the transition that’s the tricky part for me. It is when I got so used to the warm fuzzy coat and I need to take it off because the flowers are blooming in spring or I just got to know someone and our time is up or even the opposite, I said goodbye but now they’re back . I like to blur the lines on whether a season is reaaalllly over. Or for those that are without a doubt over, like when your crush gets married, random example, and I begin to question if there’s a mistake. Or even far deeper when I lose a loved one because of an end of a friendship or even death.

Transitions feel like the middle of a tunnel. Where it’s dark and murky. Sometimes it feels so long you can’t remember how to get out or doubt there is an out. It is a place where faith needs to take the lead because we have no guarantee of what lies ahead. It’s also comfortable because it grows familiar and we can get stuck. Transition is hard. Even when it’s good . Like when you no longer feel as low after a loss and you start to feel joy returning and you wonder if you got happy too soon ... or when you know you need to let someone go and they didn’t even do nothing wrong but the season is over .

When we get stuck in where we need to have moved from, we affect not just us but even those around us. If the baby stayed in the womb 12 months, there will be complications on the child, if they survive and the mother’s womb. It may be as consequential as when you extend the 15 minute conversation to a 6 month relationship that you weren’t meant to have or stay an extra year at work and miss out on an opportunity.

The signs that it’s time are often there. Just like in the literal seasons, even when you don’t count the months, the first snowfall will tell you it’s winter. We have signs all around us. Some not as loud but still present. I doubt that there is an AP system in the body that goes like “Baby, your time to be birthed is now. I repeat your time to be birthed is now. Grab your placenta and head towards the opening” (pun unintended but appreciated) . That’s most of the seasons in our lives, there is no announcement but we just know and even when it seems unexpected, it really isn’t. When we stay in touch with the author, we get hints of the script. Like you know, a light unto our path. We know the next step

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105

Seasons need to be that, seasons ... not a forever but a time being. We need to be aware of what season God is calling us to and also from. Am learning to let go of old seasons and embrace new ones . To pray through the transition and trust as I dive out into the new unknown. I’ll discover it’s bigger, better, not cramped up like the womb. Yes, it was warm and safe but it was a then. Now we look forward to the new. It is time for a new season, maybe in how we think , how we do certain things or people in our life that need to go, or come in.. activities we engage in, feelings we have harbored. Like film that goes through a dark room to process, we may have to go through seemingly dark seasons of transition as we process life and all it brings. The time may feel way too long or too soon but it is for a set season, it has an appointed time

“For the vision is yet for the appointed time;

It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

Habakkuk 2:3

Ps. This is not a blog, it's my letter to you.

Love, Mary :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fKmTfYz6_4