A Time for All Seasons

For the past couple of years, I have hated winter.

Maybe “hated” is too strong a word, but I can say I have looked more forward to summer each year.

Of course the past couple of winters in beautiful North Texas haven’t quite been normal.

There was the great Snowpocalypse last year and all the ice and snow the year before. It’s just been so cold.

This year has been a little different, of course. It’s been a very mild winter this year so who can complain?

Me.

I’m just kidding. I am really trying not to complain too much this year. I think I will always like summer better, but I’m learning to enjoy each day as it comes and whatever it has to offer. And that’s something completely new for me.

Usually, I just close up the house and hibernate from the first signs of winter until the first signs of summer, which in North Texas usually runs from December to late March.
I know it’s a short time, but I’m a hibernator. I like to be warm. All the time.

It got so bad last year that I took a couple of weeks and traveled to Key West, Fla. to get some warmer weather and find some healing for my body and mind.

That’s the old me.

I now realize it’s those few cold days of the year that really help me to appreciate the warmth of summer. I always try to imagine those cold days in January when I’m sipping an adult beverage on a boat in July. It makes me appreciate that warm summer sun even more.

Ahhhhhh. Can you feel that warmth? Oh, no, that warmth is coming from the coffee I just spilled on my lap.

Anyway.

Summer is on the way. It gets closer all the time.

Another thing I’ve dealt with over the last year and a half or so is almost constant pain in one or more of the joints in my legs.

One week it might be my knee swollen up like a South Florida grapefruit and the next my toes are swelled and look like tiny little link sausages. As delicious as they may look, I can assure you it does not feel delicious.

At all.

I’ve gone to see doctors and I’ve taken medications until I’ve thrown up. I’ve had cortisone injections. I have done it all.

The warm weather helps but not as much as it used to.

This pain is what started my new lifestyle. I started eating better because I figured if I lost a few pounds, it would be a whole lot easier on my joints.

Instead of a few pounds, I lost 60 and it did help a little but it still didn’t give me the cure.
I did a little more research on the Internet — The Source Of All Truth. I found natural supplements to try that guaranteed to fix my problem. Nothing worked.

I found a new doctor last week that I think will help me out.

After an examination, he discovered I have an infection that is stressing my liver and causing all the problems in my joints.

So he put me on this whole regimen of natural supplements to strengthen my liver, fight the infection, fix my lymph nodes around all the infected joints and make me whole again.
Actually he doesn’t make me whole, my body will become whole again on its own if it has a fighting chance. This new stuff is giving it that chance.

And while this week, my body is still fighting the last little bit of the infection and my joints are letting me know about their disappointment, I fight on. And it hurts. Really bad.
It’s difficult to walk or get up or sleep or go to the restroom. About the only thing I can do with any real efficiency is open a box of Twinkies but I know I should stay away from those.

Then it hit me.

Without this pain, I might not appreciate what feeling good feels like.

Believe me, I will appreciate feeling good. I promise.

I think that may have been what the writer of Ecclesiastes was talking about when he said there is a season for everything.

There is a time to be born and a time to die.
There is a time to tear down and a time to build up.
There is a time to cry and a time to laugh.
There is a time to be quiet and a time to speak.
There is a time for love and a time for hate.
There is a time for war and a time for peace.

We have all the extremes. They are there to remind us to remember the good times.
The writer continues in verse 11 of chapter 3:

“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.”

Everything is beautiful in its own time.

Cold can be beautiful. Pain can be beautiful. Warm can be oh so beautiful. And being pain-free is so gloriously beautiful.

I appreciate everything I’ve been given and look forward to what this healing experience will do not only to my body, but what it will do to my mind.

I hope to be able to share some of those good things with you soon.
But right now, I’m going to finish off this box of Twinkies. Because I’m really good at it.