If you’re like me, you are always looking for a bargain. Some of the best times to buy good clothes, are just before the weather changes and a new season officially begins.  The sales we can find on things we might not normally afford, are wonderful this time of year. Sure, you might not be able to wear your newly purchased sweaters for long before the weather warms. But, when Fall comes, its like having a brand new wardrobe waiting in your closet.

It’s all timing.  If you plan it just right, if you don’t mind having to wait a bit, the off season can yield some pretty cool bounty.  

I was reading in Ecclesiastes the other day.  You know the verse — about how there is a time for everything — A time to plant and a time to uproot.  A time to weep and a time to laugh.  A time to search and a time to give up searching… A time to tear and a time to mend…  The circle of life is so amazing. 

We can’t escape it.  We can’t run from it.  We can’t change it.

I am always intrigued by the human condition.  There are things that happen to us all. We are constantly met by challenges that come with change and transition.  I think that these are the times that make us or break us.  How we respond, how we deal with our difficulties, determines everything about what we are made of.  

One of the things that I am finding, is that it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how much money you do or do not have, or what you think you know about life —  change is going to come.  Our kids grow up and need us less.  Our relationships change and settle or fall away.  What used to be our passion, waxes and wanes.  It’s when we think we can avoid it, when make decisions to deny the truth, we set ourselves up for trouble.  

How many people do you know who have met mid-life crisis with a new car, new family, new partner, new whatever — swapping out one set of circumstances for another, as if doing so will actually affect the tide of inevitability.  Summer cannot last forever.  Winter always comes.  And there’s not a darn thing anyone is going to do about it, no matter how well they think they are dressed while trying. 

Fools come in all different shapes and sizes.

My point is, we are all born to this life, and we are all going to go meet the Lord one day.  The sun comes up, the sun will set.  It’s what we do in the middle that matters most.  It's in how we treat each other, what we value, the honoring of relationships and duty and honesty, and oh so many things that we know instinctively are right.  This is what sets us apart.  This is how we will be remembered. 

And so God gives us the off-season.

It’s in these times, when we are in-between, that God strengthens us for what is coming. This doesn’t mean that these are easy days.  But it’s here we take a breath, shed the things and people that no longer fit us, and anticipate the new.  He gives us insight to see that change is sometimes difficult, but when we walk it out in faith, it will always work out for our good.  

The off-season can be painful, lonely, hard… But it’s here that we make room and store up for our new season when it finally comes.

For those who run, who numb themselves in an effort to escape, who think that youth is for forever, and that change can be avoided if they just keep dancing, are a sad lot indeed.  We all know people who live as if the storehouse will never empty, that what they do will not come back around.  Those who fail to tend to what’s important, seem to have forgotten that there is a time for everything.  

As my grandmother used to say, ‘When you dance, you’ve got to pay the fiddler.’ You can’t escape it. He always gets paid.

If you are in a place of in-between, God wants you to know that you are exactly where He wants you to be.  If you look for them, there are great values to be had here.  He is ordering your steps, teaching you things in your quiet, lonely moments that you will take with you when the sun comes up again and your new season arrives.

It’s inevitable.  

Count your blessings.  Sort your what nots.  Lose those ten pounds and shake off the remnants of circumstances and people that have cluttered your closet with things that are not of Him.  

Get ready, girl.  You’ve been waiting for this.  What you have been going through will not last.  You’ve been working the off season, doing it right.  

It’s time to shine.

Look at you!  You look marvelous.