A Time for Everything

Recently I had some friends over and we spent the evening making collages using old mags.

 This is one of my favourite (easy anyone can do it..) things to do! I've even gotten my husband on board to give it a go :) Because the more I grow in myself and in the way I see God, I've found its soo important to know what season you are in...

{I like to do one of these every few months, the way I do them is just ask God to show me something for the season I'm in and then Go through the magazines and cut out the things that "JUMP" off the page, you know it when you see it... then after I think I've got what I need I stick them down - you can get really complex and try make a picture out of them etc but I prefer just to place them down pretty quickly without over thinking them so that I dont get stuck in perfectionism land x}

How can knowing the season your in be important?... Well...I've been feeling like God was showing me it was time to leave some old things behind in my life and so I started doing a few drawings and then a painting - and now when I look at it I can see the significance of what he was trying to tell me...

About 2 days after I had finished my painting called "BRAVEheart" based on one of my favourite quotes.."In Order to discover new lands one must first be BRAVE enough to loose sight of the shore" our landlord came by and said we had 6 weeks notice to find a new place because they were in need of our house to live after selling their property...

In Oxford, Christchurch where we live its a little town, but its growing really fast with people moving out this way since the earth quakes, so theres not alot of rentals avaliable etc... So when we heard the news we could have easily freaked out and gone into panic mode: "What will we do!!!?", but instead both me and my husband were happy, we could smile and wish our landlord the best...because we knew the season we are in...and it was pretty cool cause both of us were hearing the same things from God - its a time where things are changeing and we are both leaving some old ways behind...

I said to my husband the other day "I just feel so empty" and he said that he'd had a picture that God had shown him of me about a tree without its leaves, it was stripped bare. And in a way it was comforting to hear this because it confirmed the way i was feeling, BUT the coolest part was that I felt like God then said to me 'I'm emptying you, not to leave you exposed but so that I can fill you again...'

And I thought back to my painting of the little boat. Normally I love to draw boats with saplings - its another significant imagry for me - but for some reason this time it never crossed my mind to do this... and I then I realised that the boat was empty...

when it left the shore it hadnt taken anything with it...

 And so I was encouraged that in my feeling empty I was in the exact place that God wanted me to be... Empty but at peace. Not really sure where we will move to next but knowing that God had told us to come to oxford, found us a place for us in this great last season and wasnt about to leave us hanging for the next one...

On top of that - it might seem silly but I also finished the journal I keep to write and draw/collage in - And sometimes when you finish something we have this idea that we wont be able to create anything else as good...have you ever thought that? Well for me it was just another confirmation that I was coming to the end of something and it was a time to start something fresh!

I know you feel empty like a lamp without a shade but soon you will be shining bright again, full and overflowing...

This morning when I woke up I was reminded of this verse "There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens.."Ecclesiastes 3:1

So I guess my question to you is what season are you in, you may have just had some great things happen to you and its a time to laugh or maybe you've been frustated where your life is at and its a time to search, and ask some questions... if there really is a time for everything what is God saying to you about the place in time that your in, and what is he showing you within yourself?

when I look at my collage and my painting they encourage me to keep going in this season...

When we know the season and time we are in I think it can encourage us to make somthing beautiful out of it...

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A Time for Everything

"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

     a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot,  

     a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

     a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

  a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,    

 a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

     a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

     a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

...He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end..."