Here in New England we are in the Summer Season. The tourists are here, the beaches are full, and the warm sun is shining over them all. In a few months the leaves will be changing colors and falling gracefully from them. A few months after that snow will start to fall.

Seasons are always changing. The landscape is the same, the place is the same, but the season is different.

My youngest son recently got engaged and will be getting married soon. So I find myself in another transition, another seasonal change.

My son and I are still the same people, we still have a relationship, but the season is changing in our relationship. Things won’t be the same as they always have. He will have a wife, and my role will shift and look a little different.

These seasonal changes can be hard to walk through. Sometimes it feels negative but just like the physical seasons we see here on the earth, they are necessary and purposeful.

Each season is important to our growth.

Each season is important to the growth of those around us.

Each season makes us more like Jesus if we are willing to walk with Him in it.

Right now my body is going through a seasonal change. For women my age, many of you will relate to this. There are things happening that scare me. There are things happening that I am not used to.

Just like with the physical seasons, the landscape doesn’t change. I am still Desiree and still have the body I was born with, yet things are changing in it to cause it to function differently. I am having to change my diet, and I am needing to exercise more. I am taking extra time with Jesus to walk through this season as well as I can, in a way that honors HIm.

Relationships in our lives will go through seasonal changes. Some changes will cause the closeness that once was there to look a little differently. Some changes will deepen the relationships.

Many of us struggle with these seasonal changes in relationships. We see them as a negative, instead of seeing the positive. We wonder what we are doing wrong or what the other person is doing wrong, instead of seeing what God is doing in us.

In these last five months before my son gets married, I am going to make the most of the moments I have left in this season. I am going to cherish what this relationship has been with my son, and I am praying for God to prepare us for the seasonal changes that will be coming as he becomes a husband and takes on a wife.

It is a beautiful thing God is doing as he prepares David for this new role in life. I want to be a mom who finishes this season well and enters this new season holding on to the promises of God, keeping my eyes on Him, allowing Him to do the work He needs to do in me through it. I am a little sad realizing that a change is coming, but I am excited and happy for all God is going to do. I have prayed for this for him.

As we look at the relationships in our lives, let’s get a new perspective on the seasonal changes we have gone through in our relationships. Let’s be truthful about what makes us sad, yet let’s also look with hope towards what God is doing and what He will continue to do as we walk through this seasonal change

Let’s first ask God what He wants us to see and learn from this season.

Next, let’s be praying for how He wants to change others around us in this season, allowing Him to do the work He needs to do, not us trying to do His work in them.

Lastly, pray for a surrendered heart, to allow Him to make us more like Him in this season, being willing to be prepared for the next season He has for us.

I pray as we live in this way, we will receive a new perspective on these seasonal changes in our lives.