e desired to be closer to our church. A four hour round-trip drive to Philly each week had progressed into four years. Then it finally happened. We sold our Poconos home and moved to the Philly suburbs. The timely relocation of my husband’s job, just twenty-five minutes from our new place, meant we were spared of all moving expenses. Yes! Now the four-hour trip to and from church narrowed to thirty minutes. Ecstatic about how things had lined up for us, little did we know that a cycle of setbacks was just ahead.
It all started when my husband noticed his paycheck had substantially decreased. Oh no! There had been an unauthorized and unfounded garnishment. We were devastated by this. Neither did the creditor nor my husband’s employer serve notice or give him a warning. My husband felt betrayed. This was the beginning of a winter cycle that caught us unprepared, leaving us stuck in the cold and not knowing what to do. Suddenly, one day, this wisdom illuminated to my husband, “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” (1 Cor. 1:27) By this we knew we had to renew our minds with God’s wisdom and then fight back. We did and we won. The garnishment was, as I said, unfounded.
Thumbing through the pages of our lives I notice that like the seasonal cycles of nature—winter,
spring, summer and fall— much the same way, steer the directions in our lives. We must ask: how closely do we follow these directions? How can we recognize them? How well can we manage these life cycles in life? What we discovered is we can design the life we love just by understanding and embracing the seasons.
Handle the winter. Winters seem longer than all of the seasons. Winters come every year and we prepare for them by changing our clothing and our indoor temperatures. The same applies to our lives. Tough times will come. Life is a cycle of smooth surfing, bumps and bruises. The key is getting a grip on things. My husband and I could have allowed our lives to succumb to the cold of our wintry stretch, or we could simply embrace this lesson as a test of our character. We chose the latter. Don’t view this season as a creative drought or a chance to procrastinate and be lazy. Handle it with visual designs of your desired lifestyle. Use your winters as a time of rest and renewal. Become silent and situated in a state of readiness so your ideas and efforts can spring forth with greater fervency and results.
Plant in the spring. Spring always comes after a long winter. After a challenging winter, you will be faced with blossoming opportunities. It is your responsibility to take full advantage of the springs when they pop up. This is your moment to plant the seeds of greatness to come. My husband and I took advantage of our blossoming spring. In his mid-life, my husband returned to law school and pursued his dream. I, in turn, stepped out of my comfort zone and earned my doctorate. Also, in addition to designing spaces, I now write programs on designing the life you love. Use your springs to plant seeds of wisdom and spring forward. Your spring is a season where all your ideas bud and grow. Weed out some thoughts and connect with what excites you. Allow your springs to become the springboard to getting where you want to go.
Prepare and guard your summer. The carefree times of entertaining and enjoyment are during the summer seasons. It’s also a time to begin reaping the benefits of your springs. But you must keep an eye on things and never let your guard down. If you are not careful, the benefits of your planting will be stolen, shattered, or spoiled. Of course many suggested that my husband and I not return to college. In their opinions, it was a waste of time at this stage of our lives. One person, using himself as an example, said he is not utilizing what he went to college for at all, but instead is doing something totally different. This remark was designed to shatter and spoil our dream. On the other hand, there are those who have taken my life design theme to make it their own.
I am reminded of the ants in Proverbs 30:25 that lay up their food in the summer. These ants are industriously preparing for winter while guarding their possessions. Learn the lesson from the ants. Your summer cycle is your season of gathering and preparing. Cultivate your ideas during this season. Develop yourself and your projects. Engage in personal and spiritual growth so you can stay cutting-edge and energized for the ensuing times.
Mature and reassess in the fall. This time, right now, is where you can open yourself to learning the lessons that the previous seasons taught you and put everything into perspective. During the fall, the trees change color, lose their leaves, and the weather gets cooler. This means you must gear up for another winter. Now is the best time to take full responsibility for what happened in the previous seasons, both the good and bad. Perhaps some old projects need to be completed in order to make room for new projects to take root. The key to maturing is to be willing to release the old in order to embrace the new. Allow time to think and plan for the seasons ahead. Assess what you need to change, improve, upgrade, release or redesign.
My husband and I could not always see the ensuing winters and know what was ahead. But we could take inventory of the unfinished projects in our lives and set goals and timelines to complete them. We learned that by doing so, we could be ready once more to handle another winter that is coming, and plan for the following spring and summer.
Just as natural seasons go through stages—winter, spring, summer and fall—the creative process of designing the life you love goes through similar seasons as well. Discovering new ideas, solutions or creative answers is a cyclical process. Hard times will come to challenge you. But if you master your understanding of seasons, you can be confident that strategies and solutions will come. Tune into the Spirit of God as He reveals your own personal timings. This is the key to embracing your life's seasons.
I would love to hear your story and how you handle your life cycles. Leave me a comment or email me at
dmurphy@eewmagazine.com.