For everything, there is a season

" Hope" (Ecclesiastes 3:1 ; Isaiah 40:7-8)

A plush green field

one bare tree

a winters season has left me cold

but life is all around me and your love binds me still to thee

Though seasons pass

and people change

You, oh Lord, stay the same

As time goes by and it's warm again

hope arises with each new day

Leaves bloom

out of a winters gloom

growth is evident once more

Back to our roots

where we find you

the deeper we go

You pull us through

to the heart of this life

to the unwavering hope that remains

To you, in you, through you we go on

Though "the grass withers" and "the flower fades...the word of our God will stand forever."

Well its been a little while since I've last updated so I decided to share my heart from this past weekend. In case you were curious the diet has been going well, I went away to visit a very dear friend this weekend so I was told it's always okay to splurge while vacationing ;)

However, its back to the gym tomorrow and I can't wait!

Though I've been so far away lately and run from the only source of hope and strength that is solid, He still has provided. This trip came at just the right time. A time get away, to laugh, to smile and to be smothered in love by a beautiful daughter of the King! My very dear friend, Kristen main will soon be heading off to Mexico, a place that God has placed so heavily on her heart. Though I do not deserve it, God ministered to me this weekend through her. I've never met someone who loves more passionately than her. She would argue this, but I can justify it but pointing back to the one I know has provided. He knew just what all of us needed this weekend.

Now for a bit on the poem I opened with. On our way back today after tears, hugs, and goodbyes we drove by countless open fields. Needles to say, as far as scenery goes its a pretty boring drive. Despite that, you'd come across random fields with beautiful green grass. You know that kind we haven't seen in so long!? In one field in the middle of the grass stood one lone tree. Though life was all around it, life was not evident on its branches. My mind just got to wondering away with that thought and how often I am that lone tree, surrounded by life but not truly living. Every winter depression kicks in like the unwelcomed enemy you don't remember inviting in. I feel its a daily thing, but this season is one where I feel its at its "heaviest". It drags, I go into defensive seclusion mode, and tend to push away those closest to me. I don't know if every winter will be the same, I don't know how long it will be a struggle of mine... it could very well be forever. However, I believe now despite pain that God is still the same God in this season that he has always been. I believe that if it's something I struggle with forever, he will provide ways to push past it, to cope, to avoid the pit I dig.

I don't know what it is for you. But we all have seasons in life that seem to drag and drain the most out of us... to where if we are real honest, it seems absolutely hopeless. I'll be the first to tell you there are times in dark places that I'd say there wasn't hope...knowing full well at the root of it all, Hope remains the same. Wherever your at, whether your in a season of joy or pain I urge you to cling to Him first and foremost. Thats what He is teaching me all over again, daily it seems. Its true that God puts us through seasons to teach us, grow us, and bring us closer to Him... and today I saw that in His creation and loved playing a verse through my mind back to my "roots" if you will. That His word stands forever. He stands forever.

The next hours that followed on the trip home went from a silly question game to very personal heartfelt questions. In vulnerable moments each person shared as I stared out the window, eyes filled with tears heart heavy with both gratitude and guilt... He is God, all the time. So though so many things are painful and to be honest with you it'd be so much easier to quit, Christ will always be for me... so I have no reason to.

I hope if your reading this you are encouraged in some way, and I hope that you hold on to his hope wherever you are at..."..... Christ in you, the hope of glory." ( Colossians 1:27)