Dry Season

DRY SEASON

Have you ever experienced dry seasons in your life? A desert receives little rain and produces little vegetation because it’s dry. The past year has been a dry season for me as a writer. Inspiration has been difficult to come by, and words don’t flow on the page as they did.

Nature had seasons: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. I live in the Temperate Zone, so this is what I experience with some variation each year. A season of sleep, a season of new life and growth, a season of continued growth and maturity, and a season of slowed growth and harvest in preparation for sleep. Each season has its unique beauty, challenges, and trouble.

After the Great Flood in Noah’s day, God made a promise concerning the seasons.

“While the earth remains,

Seedtime and harvest,

Cold and heat,

Winter and summer,

And day and night

Shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22 NKJV)

Life had seasons: birth and new life, the beginning; childhood and youth, a time of growth; adulthood, a time of maturity and productivity; and old age, when we reap a harvest from the former years and prepare for the life to come. God gives us life and He determines the length of it. And each season of life means change.

In Psalm 90, Moses reflects on God’s eternity and power and man’s dependence on God, and he makes the following request of God — to live wisely the life He gives us:

“Teach us to number our days,

That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12 NKJV)

God, our Creator and Sovereign, values us and gives our lives meaning and significance.

“And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,

And establish the work of our hands for us,

Yes, establish the work of our hands.” (Psalm 90:17 NKJV)

I have several manuscripts in progress, but the writing has been slow and difficult. A friend suggested it’s all right to take a break, a respite from the stress of writing to be published. The goal in my writing is still to glorify God and help others. If I take this time to refocus as I await God’s showers of refreshment, I believe He can and will use my words to count for Him.