Rewriting Your Season

The past several weeks, I’ve been thinking.  A lot.  Thinking about this new season of empty-nesting that my husband and I are now in.  We’ve actually been official empty nesters for a year and a half now, but I still don’t think we have found our groove.  Correction: my husband has TOTALLY found his groove… I, however, have not!When this should be the season of having more energy, capacity, time and margin in my life… I find myself having less.  I have found myself working more than ever before, and being more exhausted than ever before.  After a few weeks of really thinking and asking God about it, He’s helped me to discover the reason why.In the season of raising young children, then pre-teens, and onto teenagers, I had to stop working once the kids got home from school, because I then went back into Mama-mode for sports practices, games, extra-curricular activities, etc.  Once our youngest child left for college over a year ago, my opportunity to go into Mama-mode vanished.  Just like that.  No more games, practices, dances, homework, etc.  It all came to a screeching halt overnight.  I then found myself with extra time and I now realize, extra time that I filled up with work, work and more work.  I didn’t even realize what I was doing.  I just knew how tired I had become.Looking back over this past year and a half, many of the things I experienced were out of my control.  Life can just be hard.  Tragedies happen.  Pain is real.  Dear friends hurt deeply.  People you love walk through dark valleys.  Things I cannot control but things I am deeply affected by. The fact of the matter is that it didn’t really matter how I arrived to the place of over-working, over-exhaustion, and being over-scheduled… it just mattered that I was there. Something had to change, and what had to change was ME.So, with this newly found insight, there are some changes I must make going forward into this new season.One of my revelations is this: I am the one who got myself here, so I am the only one who can get myself out. I have the FULL ability and authority to rewrite what my next season of life will look like.  No one else will do it for me.  Now granted, I have an awesome husband and great pastors who lovingly  helped me realize where I had gotten myself, but at the end of the day, I am the only one who can rewrite where I am going and what kind of shape I will be in when I get there!I truly want to be able to say that my “latter days will be greater than my former days”! (Job 42:12). In order to achieve that goal, there are some changes that I must make.My husband even told me recently, “Heidi, this next season is going to feel like you’re being very selfish,  and it’s ok, you need to be selfish right now.”  There are many attributes someone could see in me, the good and the not so good, but SELFISH isn’t one of them.  I think as most women do, I think of everyone else, help everyone else, worry and concern myself about everyone else, purpose to meet the needs of everyone else……everyone except me.Another revelation that has brought great freedom to my heart and mind is this: I have permission to rewrite the second half of my life, this next season, exactly how I want it to look.  I don’t have big, glaring regrets as I look back over the first half of my life, but I certainly don’t want the big, glaring regrets to be evident in my second half of life either.What will I purposefully say ‘yes’ to?  And what must I say ‘no’ to?  What weight of responsibility do I still need to carry, and what responsibilities can I release to other very capable people to carry? How can I lead from ABOVE “it”, rather than lead IN “it”?  What does “rest” look like in this next season for me?  What can only I do in the sphere of influence that God has given me?So that’s where I am at.  I’ve got a lot of work to do.  Not work for others, but work to be done on myself.Now, I turn it to you.  What season of life do you find yourself in?  How do you need to rewrite this current season in your life, or the next season that’s right around the corner for you?  It doesn’t matter if you’re in the season of singleness, newly married, young mother, mother of teens, an empty nester or a seasoned retiree... we ALL have the opportunity to rewrite our season. The great thing about seasons, is that they are exactly that:  A SEASON.  And it shall pass.  So if you haven’t done too great in this season, you have the opportunity to make corrections for your next season.What changes do you need to make in your current season?  What adjustments need to be made so you can enter your next season with “no regrets”?  What permission do you need to give yourself to make those changes or adjustments?You hold the pen to your life.  Yes, we are led by our Heavenly Father and prayerfully, you seek Him as you move forward into each new season.The grace of God will lead you.The peace of God will guide you.The power of God will strengthen you.Ultimately, YOU are the one who holds the pen in rewriting your next season and how you will walk through it.  This next season for you is a blank sheet of paper.Write out the story. I’m giving you permission to start writing.Your story is becoming a God story: a story of grace, of hope, of fresh starts, of new dreams and of new beginnings.