What change a year can bring! I am convinced that life comes in seasons, just like the weather can change so drastically from one degree and color to another. A year ago this time I was struggling for full-time work and in the midst of a major desert period. I heard rumblings of rain, the words of those I trust speaking of a plentiful springtime to come. Seems the spring came a year later...but it came nonetheless in what has been one of the most beautiful falls I have ever experienced.
Winter is now approaching or may very well be upon us, but it feels like a further extension of this springtime I speak of. Whereas last year I was concerned with how to find more substantial work and how to get into the school system substitute teaching, now I am enjoying regular full-time work and preparing to enter the schools as a touring theatre artist.
Last year this time I had only the faint beginnings of a partially written kids show. Now I have completed several drafts of a full-length script for "King David: LIVE!" which I have been able to workshop and present in small increments around Chicagoland raising funds toward the full production.
Doubts abound when one lives by what is clearly visible. My doubts as to whether or not God would allow me to stay in Chicago, whether he would continue to provide for me here in pursuit of my dream, his dream, our theatrical dream together, rose and fell at different times like the temperature outside. But over the past year, he has also taught me how to work with the inner thermostat, such that the outside elements of cold, hot, wind and rain (or lack thereof, mostly), have less of a mal-effect on this tree he has planted. I'm taking root, and it's his plan. So I'm okay. And I will thrive, rain or shine, snow or no snow. But there will be snow. And this tree will blossom in it.
Come now, winter, and extend this springtime with your icy, snowy blasts! The Snowman Awaits!
Ecclesiastes 3
A Time for Everything (NIV translation)
" 1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."
