8.26.19~ Seasons

Hello friends, 

It's been a minute since I have blogged. I honestly have just been extremely busy over the summer, and did not feel like I had very much worth saying over the summer. School has now started back and I have less than seventeen weeks of high school left. The reality that it's coming as quick as it is seems so surreal. I often ask myself where time went and how I made it this far. I can firmly say that it is only by the grace of God and the support from my friends and family that I have made it this far. 
But, more of a graduation speech later on, I started this post to talk about something specific.

I began this post to talk about seasons; not the beautiful seasons we experience in East Tennessee, but the seasons we experience in life. Over the course of the seventeen years I have been alive, I've experienced many different seasons without realizing it, and I have seen my parents experience many different seasons of life. The way I often think of these seasons in my mind, is like flowers. Most flowers are only full and beautiful for one of four seasons. In the other three seasons they are changing and growing and transforming. There cannot be beautiful seasons without rain and often times storms come alongside that rain. The same is true in life.

As my high school season comes to a close, I have found myself going through a very tough and very odd season of life. I had the best summer of my entire life this year. I made so many memories and got to experience so many amazing things! I wouldn't change one moment of it and I am forever thankful for the Summer of 2019. As summer came to an end, life began to change. I found myself feeling down because I did not have the same opportunities to experience some of the things that my friends were experiencing during the first week of their senior year. I began to realize that I would never have a senior walk, senior sunrise on the football field, and I knew I didn't get to walk across the stage at the very end of my senior year and proudly get my diploma as they called my name. 
I found myself single. I am no longer in the relationship that I thought was my forever. That situation alone was not somewhere I wanted to be my senior year. We had so many plans for our relationship and I was looking forward to so much together as we finished high school. But right now, I have to be thankful for the time I had and trust that this is all for our good. 
I realize that it probably sounds like I am complaining, but I promise I am not. I always promised to be very real and open on this blog, and that is what I am doing. 

One of my favorite books of the Bible is Ecclesiastes.  In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, it says, "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace." 
Within those eight verses God gave Solomon the wisdom to know that there was time and purpose for everything under heaven. Just a couple chapters earlier in Ecclesiastes 1:9 Solomon said, "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun."
The things I am experiencing in this season of life is not new. People before me have dealt with it, and people after me will experience the same things. The feeling of missing out is nothing new to anyone in this world and it will be a feeling that many high school seniors after me feel. The feeling of heartbreak from relationships is nothing new to anyone in this world and will always be something that is felt by humans. 
"You are loved. You are valued. No matter how you feel." 
This season is a season to grow, to build, to change. I am trusting God to guide the next few steps I need to take in life. From my post-high school plans, to my future husband. As much as the pain and heartbreak of recent lost relationships, missed opportunities, and the fear of moving get to me, I can trust that God has things planned out. He knew that these relationships would end, that I would be scared to move into a new chapter of life, and anything else I am feeling. He is not surprised by any of it, even though I am. 
This is a season to grow in Christ. The beauty in this season of fear, excitement, pain, and a mix of emotions, is that I can grow in Christ. I can rely on Him to be my sense of hope, of peace, of joy, of identity. I am learning that Christ is enough for me; everything I need. If joy is found in the rain, you'll find me praying for a hurricane. 

There are exciting things in this season of my life too. I am so excited to be starting new adventures, graduating, moving out, and getting involved in new things. I have began to sing with a choir again and I couldn't be more happy to be back in my element. I am so thankful for the lovely ladies in my life who are loving on me, mentoring me, and who are there when I need them. I am thankful for the hot and humid Friday nights I am spending at football fields and the exciting things I am creating right now in preparation for my upcoming life. 


I wrote all of this to say... I do not know what is going on in your life. I don't know what season of life you are standing in, and I don't know what kind of circumstances you are currently walking through. I hope that you are in a season of joy, new opportunities, happiness, and love. I celebrate in that with you. Thank God for those mountaintops.
But if you are in a season of growing like I am, let's sing from the valley. Worship is a war cry. 

"May you approach this season with gratitude and a deeply rooted hope that everyday will teach you something that is an integral part of your growth." -Morgan Harper Nichols 



I love you all to the moon and back!!!! 




love, 

izzy💛💛

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