Four Seasons in Life

One Sunday morning while I was sitting in the sala of our formation house watching the rain outside, a thought came to my mind.  I am so excited to experience the different seasons of the year here in Italy especially the cool breeze of winter season to see the snow.  Unlike the Philippines, we only had wet and dry seasons.  Imagining myself of what I will be feeling as the season changes makes me think of relating this to some points in my life.

I have come up with a conclusion that somehow we could also compare these seasons in our spiritual journey. It was such a crazy thing to compare but it does not mean because we are on the summer season, the feelings are the same but it is just an example that sometimes in life we felt such, either today, tomorrow or the day after.  Life’s circumstances is unpredictable because God works in a mysterious and miraculous ways.

There was a time when I felt so hot in my service to God as in the summer season. At some points in life this is the time when I am so energetic.  It is as if I want to conquer the world to do everything, to accomplish everything, to be a hero, to help all the time and to be always the first to move on.  I am very passionate and enthusiastic. I see God in all that I do.  I don’t want to stop and rest.  I always put a smile on my face because I am always inspired.  

However, these feelings are actually not lasting.  Just as the summer season ends, in life this is also the time when my enthusiasm and energy also will slowly diminishes away.   All I thought my energy is forever full.  However, God allowed certain things to happen in order for me to realize that I needed him more in life.  Thus, the next point in life follows.

This is the time when the leaves of the trees became dry and started to fall on the ground.  It is the start of the Autumn.  In my life, I also have experience a lot of falling down that made me very difficult to stand up again.  It was the time when I am being stripped off, prune and turn into pieces.  It hurts, yes, and it is painful without anything left in me.  Sometimes I need to die and forget myself so I may understand.  To recall them was not easy but at least I was able to survive.  A particular situation happened when I was a Novice.  Towards the end of my Novitiate, the Lord have taken my mother.  That was so painful because my mother died in front of me.  To cut it short, as time passed after that incident I thought I was already okay. Unfortunately, when I almost recovered from that loss, prior to my first religious profession in religious life, I received a news from home that my father got blind.  It was as if the whole world became dark and the night have covered me.  My dream of letting my parents see me wearing a habit as a religious sister was a failure.  My mother died and my father can no longer see, though I believe mom is watching me now in her own world.  What a pain!  What a discouragement! But I persevered. See, this is an example of losing and falling like the autumn season.  But it did not take long because God has given enough strength and courage for me to see the light just as the autumn season come to its end.

To continue my imagination on the seasons of the year and relating it again on my experiences, the cool breeze of winter is as if the point of time where I felt so cold in my relationship with God. Those times made me questioned the love of God for me.  I got angry.  I stop praying because I can’t actually pray.  I wanted to give up on my vocation.  I wanted to escape and rebel against God.  I wanted to hide myself somewhere so I will not be seen that I am hurting.  It was a long period of agony which also affected my relationship with others especially with my community.  Fortunately, in the midst of feeling so cold, the God of silence beckons me to journey to my heart.  It is as if he is telling me in a song “ My child this darkness isn’t emptiness for there I mould your heart into my image faithfully you long to be.”…then as I open my eyes the cool of  winter season ends.

Everything will pass away.  My feeling of being so cold also passed away.  Then a spring season is on its way.  Yes!  They say that the flowers bloom in different colors and the leaves of the tress have started to grow.  So beautiful that you can hear the birds singing and the dancing of butterflies by transferring from one flower to the other.  This is the point in life of Jesus’ Resurrection. This is also  our resurrection.  My resurrection!  In the liturgical calendar this is the mark of the Easter season,  my renewal, the triumph of life over death and suffering.  This is the time of letting go and letting God works.  A time of celebration and thanksgiving.  A moment in life that I am so hopeful that my pain and my tough times will not be in vain because here I am again renewed in the life of Christ.  This is the spring.  This is my season in life. Until then, the cycle of life repeats again and again in different experiences and circumstances.  It’s always a survival because the grace of God is always there. 

To conclude, enjoy every season of the year as you enjoy every season of your life.  Life indeed is a cycle.  It doesn’t matter whether on what season you are in as long as you remain in God. Be faithful and hopeful that in every season He is there and believe that all will pass away.  It’s up to us to discover and see Christ face in those experiences.  Deo Gratias!