For everything..there is a season..

 "I could not have known then that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing."-Donald Millar

Honestly, saying goodbye to Madagascar is hard. It is hard to leave what has been a beautiful journey, a privilege and a gift. Yet, as I leave this beautiful country God has reminded me again of the seasons...

I absolutely love that stage when a season changes. There are new sights, new sounds, new experiences with the coming of another stage in the year. With spring, everything seems to bloom where there once was nothing and the air comes alive with new sounds. In winter, things die, yet even in the cold and the death I feel that there is a freshness and beauty in the stillness and the dying, because one know that new life comes again in spring. So as I finish my time here in Madagascar, I feel like I have enjoyed the season of spring inside me. I know that God has planted and bloomed new things in me. I have been given the gift of seeing-seeing the beauty in new people that I’ve met. Seeing the beauty in the midst of what is often dirty and dead. Seeing the beauty of Gods unfathomable grace…the beauty in the smile of a child who know He has been ‘born again.’  …The beauty of the sunrise and the sunset. God has given me eyes to see these things. I am so thankful. God has given us this gift of seeing so we can view Gods glory, His artwork. It's an invitation to worship Him, to know Him. I have been given the gift of spring- of seeing all things new.

Personally, I am quite the fan of the sounds in spring…It’s the time when kids come outside to play…when the country comes alive with sounds of animals. So too, I feel I have been able to hear new things in Madagascar. God has whispered new things about Himself to me. I have been able to listen to His thoughts about me in a fresh way. I have been able to hear the sounds of joy as well as the sounds of pain and suffering. I have heard the sounds of children playing, laughing….worshiping. I have been able to grow to understand more of the sounds of the new and very different language that has surrounded me, which I once didn’t understand. I have heard the sound in the morning of the rooster, and at night the sound of the grasshoppers mixed with a bit of SK Melody…:) Yet, amidst all these new sounds the most wonderful has to be the sweet sound of the name ‘Jesus..’ In Malagasy, French or in English etc this name changes people. The name of the Jesus has power everywhere. It springs new life, forgiveness and hope in people. I thank God for the new gift of being able to hear.

So, in some ways spring is now over. I say goodbye to Madagascar…to the lovely people I have met. Yet, another season begins in my life. God has given me such a wonderful gift. I stand in awe. I go back to Ireland in wonder of my God. In Madagascar the season is changing. From the hot sun of summer to the cooler winter…in Ireland….I go home to summer. Time moves on. Things change. Yet, even though I am sad to leave, I am excited for what God will bring next. It is tempting to want to stay in the season of life and newness and birth….yet, I am aware that I have been called to move on. To go to this new season God has called me to... I thank God for who He is and what He has done in and through me the last few months. Thank you for the seasons God.

Whatever place you are in at the minute…whether you feel dead, cold and far from God..whether you feel new and excited about who God is..know that God is unchanging in every season. I am reminded if the word in Ecclesiastes 3:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die;a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and 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.