An INSIDE Change of Seasons!

Good Morning Friends!

Pretend this is Monday and I am right on schedule for this post! 🙂 I am preparing for travel–again–this time I will be speaking at an event on the East Coast with some precious friends in Pennsylvania!! yeah–I am in for some sweater weather and catching a few golden leaves, even if they are mostly falling to the ground. I can’t wait. Speaking of FALL–if you are not signed up to receive my newsletter, if you will click on the cute little butterfly in the window on the right side of your screen, I’ll send you my most recent one (We just E-Mailed it Yesterday :0)! I promise YOU will send ME back some virtual hugs over the Fall Crab Bisque recipe I shared!

God has really been working this message of Changing Seasons deeply into my life this year–honestly, it is blowing me away faster than one of those golden leaves that flutters to the ground at the end of it’s season.

I am SO EXCITED to share a bit of  the ladies retreat I am speaking for on Saturday. Maybe you know the verse in the Bible that says God’s message is “like a fire, shut up in my bones”. I am bursting at the seems to get it worked out from my heart to my lips! I would be grateful for a little prayer if you have one to spare!

If you are NEW to my website, I invite you to join those faithful friends who visit me on a regular basis and know that, although my desire is always to inspire–my blog most often ends up as a random reflection of my all over the page thinking and life. I am a most often a “hot mess” working out my salvation and my calling with fear and trembling! I hope that helps you to “relate” and doesn’t scare you away LOL!!

Today–I thought I would share the UNREFINED notes that I am scribbling away in my journal these days as God is opening my heart to some sweet revelation. He is using the SEASONS of Life to CHANGE ME! Hopefully you will relate to some of what God is showing me and can follow what I am attempting to share as I am working this out in my own heart!

In the woman’s conference I have, called Imagine Me…Set Free, I teach on what I call a “Freedom Flower©”. It is basically a Life Time-Line that we work through as a group over 4 keynote sessions. The Freedom Flower uses the image of a Sunflower from the roots up to the stalk, from the stalk (where “weeds” begin) to the bloom, from the bloom to the seed. The Freedom Flower is designed to reflect 4 revolving stages of life.

God has shown me specifically during this FALL SEASON how often those 4 Satges of Life show up in pretty much EVERYTHING HE creates–especially the Seasons of our lives!

In the Fall season of life, we are hit hard with CHANGE! We are riveted by losses and unexpected transition. Places, people or positions that have held us securely for as long as we can remember have suddenly “let go” and are not providing the security we have always known. For you–Fall may have looked like loss of health; a broken marriage or friendship; a lost job; a move to an unfamiliar home or city…..It can be so many things that cause UNWANTED life transition.

Think about the drastic changes that come with Fall as we know it!

“Then summer fades and passes and October comes. We’ll smell smoke then, and feel an unexpected sharpness, a thrill of nervousness, swift elation, a sense of sadness and departure”

Thomas Wolfe

or another way to say it is:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heaven.

God, Ecclesiastes 3

I have been in a LIFE Season of “Fall” that has lasted ALL of 2014. Sometimes seasons of life do that. They stay too long!

The changes, specifically endings, that have come my way have tested my faith as aggressively as I have experienced in 30 years of trusting God. The good news is, God has shown me that is OK! We are not necessarily allowed to decide how long a “season” in life will last. In other words, I can’t walk out my front door and speak to the weather and say–“Fall–I am done with you! I am ready for Winter! I want some snuggly fireplaces and twinkling Christmas lights now!”. Instead, I have to wait for Fall to have it’s way in me and allow God to do what HE wants to do with this season in my life. He will allow me to move on when HE is done with His work. I do believe that sometimes that time comes when WE finally decide to accept those fallen leaves and allow Him to lead us on to the next season.

In other words, when it is time to let those dead Fall leaves drop from the trees and settle into the ground, I need to be ready to LET GO!!

Do you get me?

I need to move on to the season that always follows Fall–Winter! I can’t wait to share what God has shown me about THAT season!!

You can see my brain, my heart, my Bible and my bungled words are “FALLING” all over the place. If you will join me, I will do my best to “rake” these thoughts all into a pile and share them in some logical way that might connect our hearts together and allow us to encourage and inspire one another IN-THROUGH or OUT of the Season we are living!

In the meantime–WE HAVE LOTS of OCTOBER WINNERS!!! I’ll announce them tomorrow 🙂 

FIRST–I wanted to give my new guests ONE MORE CHANCE to sign up for the newsletter or leave a comment and you will have ONE MORE CHANCE to Win one of my October Give-away goodies!! 

Blessings!!

Pat