In Reponse to the Fruit in Season

My roommate Jenn Crouse is a very wise women and I have received encouragement from her for three years now. One of her blog posts last month still resonates in my heart so I wanted to share what I have learned.

http://www.jenncrouse.com/2011/02/embracing-whats-in-season.html

When a fruit is in season there are TONS of it. It is in abundance and filling the shelves with its color. This is the same way with the season of our lives. There are seasons that our hearts of full of encouragement and love and seasons in drought and our thirst for the Lord is unquenchable. We are constantly going through certain seasons that bear different types of fruit. Not that one fruit is better than the other, just different kinds of fruit. Like Jenn's Blog  the nectarines still taste good they are just different then apples. They look different, feel different, and one tastes better with peanut butter then the other.

The Lord has definitely blessed me with a year of bountiful harvest, the fruit that has been sweet. My fruit comes in the form of a fun job, amazing roommates, and an incredible boyfriend. Yet, as time goes on its hard not to look in the future. What kind of job will I have in the fall? Where will I live? What will my community look like? And I so easily get caught up in the future looking forward to a different season, looking forward to change. Now planning and preparing is not all bad, but when it causes me to worry and forget this season is where I struggle. 

How many times have I been unsatisfied in a season of life, no fruit is popping up, not even a small little bud, and to add the results have been bitter.

Jenn's blog was an amazing reminder to continue in the harvest I am now. The Lord has me working and toiling in a specific field that he has created for me and this field will bear specific fruit by his hand. All the toiling and hard work will bear fruit that is sown only from him anyway. Even if I try to toil in a different field my work will be in vain, because that fruit is not mine. For the field I glean in now is specific to my needs and only from him can I enjoy the harvest.

Ecclesiastes 2:24-25 says, "There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?"

So while I am toiling in the field set before me the question is how could I be a better roommate? How could I be better co-worker? How could I be a better girlfriend?

The seasons will change. They will change from a season of battle to a season in a desert wasteland. They will change from a season of comfort to a season of uncertainty. So instead of worrying about what other fruit is out there I will take a big giant bite out of the fruit in front of me!

Thanks to Jenn and her sensitivity to the spirit and thanks to Ecclesiastes:
"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, an a time to die; a time to plant, an a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill an 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 tear, and a time to sew; 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." (Ecc. 3:1-8).