Have you ever had a visitor overstay their welcome? Whether they were extended family, old friends or new friends, did there come a point when the grace you had at the beginning of the stay ran out and everything began getting on your nerves? The beginning of the visit was filled with all kinds of grace, yet by the end of the stay, all you could think about was getting some privacy back in your life and home. Why? Because that visitor was only meant to stay for a season…and perhaps your idea of a season was different than theirs.
A similar thing can happen when our timing for the seasons in life differs from God’s timing. Too often, we refuse to recognize the signs that a season has ended. We plant our feet firmly in a spot, refusing to transition. We stay longer than we should, thinking we can somehow get back what we once had. We try to don our proverbial superhero capes and muster up the same powers we once had to manage what we once did.
But it was never our own power that got us through that season in the first place.
It was God’s immeasurable GRACE.
Grace is one of those extraordinary gifts God gives us when we are in the middle of something that cannot be managed by our strength alone. We don’t always realize how much grace is carrying us when we are in the middle of it. It is only on the other side that we look back and realize there is no possible way we could have traversed that journey on our own.
The first few years of Rustic Cuff were filled with so much grace that, at times, I felt like someone was on either side of me lifting me up over massive speed bumps along the way. When I look back at the beginning stages, I feel exhausted simply thinking about it! I wonder how I survived with so little sleep and with so many overwhelming obstacles I had never encountered before.
There are times when grace stays with us in an area of our lives until we leave this earth. Other times, God shows us that a season has ended by lifting the grace He gave us for a particular project or person. If not for the grace lifting, we would never move on to our next season!
Like those visitors who overstay their welcome, we can easily miss important signals if we aren’t paying attention. We may think we have just become irritable or bored with something. (That can certainly be the case sometimes, and we need to ask God to help us right the ship.) But this goes beyond feeling irritable or impatient. It’s a consistent “knowing” that the supernatural grace given to us for something in particular has lifted, and we cannot seem to get it back. We may not even realize how much grace we were given to relate or work the way we were until it is no longer there!
Are you at the end of a particular season in your life? Do you feel something shifting, but aren’t sure how to let go and move forward? Trusting in the same grace that got you to and through this place, this job or this relationship will ALSO get you to your next assignment. Ask God to open your eyes to circumstances and relationships in which His grace has lifted…and for the wisdom to know how to exit well so He can usher in your new beginning.
Ephesians 4:7 “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”
