Will This Season Ever End?

Day 6 | Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

There was a time in my life when a relationship with a friend ended very badly. I felt personally wronged by his actions, and after some failed attempts to reconcile, we slowly grew apart.

For a long time, I prayed for God to remove the pain, but woke up the next day replaying the events in my head and still feeling wronged. I asked God many times, when would this season end?

I wanted the emotional healing to happen overnight so I could move on with my life. I wanted to speed through the seemingly bothersome, unconstructive season of anger and grief, and advance to a more rewarding, positive season of joy and light-heartedness. Yet God had other plans, and the process took much longer than I expected.

As the Preacher points out in Ecclesiastes 3, “there is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” (v. 1), “a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build” (v. 3). Despite our tendency to favor some, there exists no hierarchy among the seasons, seemingly good or seemingly bad. Each is appropriate and important in its own time (v. 11).

These seasons where it feels like everything is out of our control are an important time to recognize God as the master of time—to accept that we cannot understand the full workings of His plans (v. 11). Although we only see the present moment, God sees all. The seasons may be going by slowly, but we know that everything is part of a coherent story that God is writing. Instead of fixating on our past grief or future hopes, we can place our confidence in God, who is the master of eternity, and learn to enjoy His blessings in the present (vv. 12-13).

As I yielded myself to His work, I began to see things from His perspective. I realized that anger, grief, and the negative emotions I experienced may not simply be “bad”. With the guide of the Holy Spirit, they are a compass for self-understanding, growth, and transformation. My negative emotions pointed me towards the idols, lies, and fears that I harbored in my heart. My season of pain became a season of sanctification as God took the fears I held deep and slowly overturned each one, replacing them with His love and grace.

God took this time to build my relationship with Him and taught me what it means to trust His guidance. I learned that God is the rock and anchor for my soul (Hebrews 6:19). And without the storms, how will we ever know the importance of an anchor?

Despite how much I wished to fast-forward that season, I learned that it takes time to heal. While I would never wish a difficult situation upon anyone, I would also never want to go back to the person I was before. My season of anger and grief taught me humbleness, peace, and patience. Patience with myself; patience with others; patience with time.

With God, the painful seasons do not need to serve as a reminder of the suffering that exists in this world. Instead, they can be a reminder and witness of how God heals, comforts, and provides for us. In His time, God can rewrite any grief and pain, past or present, into something beautiful.

Whatever difficult season we are going through, let’s learn to trust God as the master of time. Winter is ending, and spring will be here soon.

—By Jiaming Zeng, USA

Questions for reflection

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About the author

Jiaming always enjoys a relaxing time with friends and family, a nice cup of hot tea, and a good story. She’s also constantly in awe at the love and wisdom God can pour into our lives.

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3 replies
  1. Nina
    Nina says:

    I saw this the other day and I felt like it could not have come at a more opportune time! Right now, a good friend suddenly stopped replying/ messaging me. I want to know why and ask for answers, but he goes to my church and I don’t want to make things awkward for him to come… so I’m waiting but also grieving so much. He’s still around, in fact we live a couple streets from each other but I am afraid to ask him why. I am beyond hurt. I just pretend to be fine when he randomly sends me a meme on Instagram. But other than that, he barely replies compared to him messaging me back every day about his day. I don’t know what to do especially in this time of quarantining… can’t distract myself with much except for work. This season is just hard :(.

    Reply
    • A
      A says:

      Same.. a friend that used to be close has dropped off the face of the earth. It’s hard not to take it personally. I am trying to see what I can learn from this instead, and am trying to accept that that’s just how life is. You cross paths with people and sometimes those paths run alongside each other- then they suddenly don’t.

    • Jiaming
      Jiaming says:

      Hi Nina and A, Thank you for your honest sharing! I totally understand how it can be hard especially during this time. I think not taking it personally is important and being understanding. There may be other things going on in their lives that have made things difficult!

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