#throwbackthursday… Revisiting this post on seasons and fruit… I was listening to a podcast and the speaker mentioned how maturity is different at different seasons. A mature apple blossom is different than a mature apple, but both can be fully what they are meant to be in their season of being. I feel like we are in such a weird season. It is easy to judge it and write it off as fruitless, but it might be just a different part of the maturing process. It can still be fully what it is meant to be if I choose to enter in and not disdain it and wish it away. The mature blossom is needed to get an apple. I am reminded of the year I plucked all these dried pods off of our rhododendron in the fall thinking I was helping the plant. In the spring I found out that those dried pods were very important. They would have been beautiful flowers if I had left them, but I saw no need for them and no purpose in the fall. I feel like it is easy to judge things this season as things that I do not need and would like to get past, but I am trying to remember that it has a purpose. It is important to be intentional to be present in what is right now and not miss it because it may be the fruit that I can enjoy later, if I do not try to pluck this away.

Throwback Thursday… Re-reading this one today for my own soul, and thinking about what it looks like to stop and allow my eyes to adjust in the darkness that seems to be invading at a super high speed and intensity. Thankfully the darkness cannot overcome the light. The light is available, and I have to choose to allow my eyes and heart to adjust to see the light that is already there. Once I see light, I can point it out and look for ways to add more light. It is tempting to curse the darkness, but that does not change the circumstances, or help anyone. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. ” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Throwback Thursdays… When I started this blog it was to work out and ponder ideas. I had no idea how many times I was writing for my future self. This is one that I have been needing to recall often these days. May we be quick with mercy, and overflowing with grace and love. I recently read this quote shared by Scott Sauls in his very timely book, A Gentle Answer, from C.S. Lewis, “Christianity is a fighting religion…(It) thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again.” There is a fight to be had, but the question to keep asking is, are we fighting for people, or against them? One is righteous and the other is not. These lessons are slow and hard, but if I claim to be a daughter of the King, then I must continue to press on, and learn to love well. #TBThursday