SEASONAL LIVING

In many ways life is a series of seasons strung together.  You find yourself in one season and then it comes to an end, and then you find yourself in another.  The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1, There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.

Last Monday I had my annual checkup with my oncologist.  The report on my health was good.  And I’m certainly thankful to the Lord for His grace and mercy.  But something else happened which affected me emotionally.  My oncologist told me he was going to retire and this was the last time I would see him.  My first response was “No, you can’t do that.”  Though I said it half-jokingly that’s how I really felt.  And in the short time that we had left after he told me, I couldn’t get all the words together to express my gratefulness to him.  Time was up.  I’m planning on writing a letter to him to express my heartfelt thanks.  But at the end of my appointment with Dr. Marks last Monday, our season together ended.

It has been a twenty-seven year association as doctor and patient.  Ultimately God is the One Who extended my life and I give Him all the glory.  But I also acknowledge that He worked through my doctor to give me life.  On the medical end of it Dr. Marks saved my life.  I had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease stage three out of four.  I was given a fifty percent chance of living.  My life had just been flipped over into rough seas in a horrific storm and I didn’t know if I would survive.  A tremendous strain was suddenly placed on my wife.  The upheaval in our way of living threw a “normal” home life of raising two children, a two year old and a three month old, into an upsetting routine of every two weeks Mommy and Daddy taking them to a baby sitter to spend a couple of days so Daddy could go to the doctor and then come home sick (my chemo nurse in good humor would say she had to make me sick to make me well). 

After seven surgeries/procedures, a year of chemo therapy, chest x-rays, CAT scans, PET scans, and numerous visits with Dr. Marks for twenty-seven years, last Monday he said, “Good bye and stay well.”  To be open with you I feel a sense of loss.  The connection was severed.  The season ended.  And though it ended with a victory, I still feel some grief.  I will miss him.  And though at times he was very clinical and straightforward with me, I am very thankful for him and his care.  So I feel a sense of grief, but I also feel a sense of joy.  I have much to be thankful for and I rejoice in what God has done and what He has done through my oncologist.  I have learned much.  I’ve been able to share my belief in Christ with him.  I’ve learned to trust God more.

Such are the seasons of life.  They come and they go.  And many times grief and loss are associated with the going of them and sometimes with the coming of them. 

But a season is more than just a span of time.  It carries with it “opportunity”.  Opportunity is the intrinsic value of a season.   Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days. Don’t be vague but firmly grasp what you know to be the will of God (Ephesians 5:15-17 Ph.).

Even in your difficult seasons, opportunity is waiting.  Dig it out and use, and use it wisely according to God’s purpose.  This is your chance.  The season will pass and with it the opportunity.  Don’t waste it.  Because God is all-wise and all-knowing and ultimately in control of all, meaning and purpose can be found in even the difficult seasons of life, and that gives rise to wise use of the opportunities which come with them.