I came home from work the other evening to a glowing fire, snuggly children, twinkling lights and a bowl of warm, spicy pasta. Earlier in the evening, still at work, I’d soaked in the cool air, the dark silhouettes of trees, the sound of fast-running water from the nearby stream. It’s the season for all these good things.

Next winter, my world may look a little different. I left my job last week and will be setting up new ventures and moving house some time in the new year.

At times of change, I feel reassured by the knowledge that there is a season for everything.

My surroundings here in Devon go through familiar cycles of growth each year, with all these beautiful details as the months roll on. There are the first snowdrops; flowers in the hedgerow; the buds and blossom; the smell of hay and the sound of the tractors; rosy apples; mushrooms and conkers; wild red leaves; rainbows; bare trunks; cold, crisp frost and shards of ice that the children hold in wonder. There are swallows in the summer, geese later on. Hares in the fields, the black tips of their ears giving them away in the long grass. Flashes of colour as goldfinches flit about the hedges. There are long, hot days with the splash of the paddling pool and the smells of the BBQ and freshly cut grass. The smell of the tent. There are the first blackberries and stained fingers. There are the white fields and deer springing away, the deliciousness of cold air and the warmth of the Rayburn. A friendly robin singing on the wall.

As the seasons come and go, there is loss and there is the new. The losses have their sadness but there is also an assurance that the good things each season holds will come around again in their time. And there are all the gifts the new season offers just around the corner.

In our lives we have times of loss and growth, routine and change and everything in between, and isn’t that just beautiful?

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

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 mourn and a time to dance,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,  
 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.