A Time for......
I love the start of new seasons, both on the calendar and in life. I'm not one who fears change. Change is good. Change helps us grow. Without change life would become stagnant. I also don't advocate change simply for the sake of change, but if nothing ever changed, neither would we. And this is not God's plan for us. He desires that life in Him be marked by transformation - continuously. Why? Because transformation - change, growth, maturing - is a process. A life-long process. A process that we need to welcome and embrace, good and bad, joy and pain.
Leaving the season of Summer is bittersweet for me. School starts here in mid-August and the slower pace I experienced in July and early August is waning. I like the slower pace of Summer. The renewal of energy as the busyness of my job and ministry slows down for a time. At the same time, I am (or will be) overjoyed to leave the heat of Summer behind. I look forward to the warm days and cool nights of Fall - if the heat waves ever end!
I love the change of the seasons, especially Fall and Spring, when the change is vivid and visual. The change of season often stirs within a desire to reflect on where you are at in life, what you are leaving and where you are going.
My summer was busy this year in different ways than it is in the school year. I launched my first online class in July, so June and early July held lots of prep and learning curves. We remodeled our offices at work, which meant lots of planning, packing, moving boxes and furniture - and the fun part - picking out paint and carpet and lobby furniture! I started exploring the possibility of writing a book about spiritual formation with a friend. We even took a writing retreat in July to brainstorm ideas. We'll see how that goes in future months. I held a Words challenge in August, the first that was not tied to a season on the church calendar, as Advent and Lent Words were. Using key words to go through the book of Colossians was at first a challenge, a different way to go through a book of the Bible. But as we went I really began to enjoy seeing how the words were woven through the book and often interacted with teach other. I think the Words challenges connect my passions of art and Bible study together in significant and creative ways and I will be exploring more challenge ideas in the future. In addition, the Words Challenge group is a vital, active and encouraging community and I have really enjoyed watching it develop and become a place of significance for so many people. I'm so grateful to everyone who participates there.
So, as we change from one season to another, we also begin a new theme in the Everyday Journals group. Our theme for September is "A Time for..." We want to take some time this month and examine our word for the year as well as look at seasons and change using Ecclesiastes 3 as our guide. In the weeks ahead we'll have some questions to help you reflect on where you are at in your journey with your word for the year. Watch for further blog posts from Bernice, Valerie and I surrounding this theme. Join us! Information about the group and links to our blogs is at the end of this post.
Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group
Bernice Hopper, Valerie Sjodin and I are using one journal to
record events, experiences and relationships and to explore our word’s
meaning in visual and fun ways. We are each blogging about our experiences and
our art. If you would like to connect with others about creatively organizing
your word, your ideas, thoughts, prayers, events, or your projects all in one
journal, you are invited to join our Facebook group: Everyday Journals – Living
Your Word of the Year.
Hashtags on Instagram: #everydayjournals2018, #livingyourword2018
Check out the other blogs:
