I hope that you are blessed with this installment as a part of my poetry series. You and I are no strangers to the difficult, testing seasons, they are a part of us all. Even the bible tells us not to be surprised during times of testing (1 Peter 4:12). I wrote this poem as a meditation of what testing seasons produce in us, and I am telling you – it’s worth it.

To the Hard Season:

To the hard season:

I don’t know if I’m ready to fully embrace you 

I don’t know if I’m ready to jump in

I am no stranger to you, no casual acquaintance 

You are inevitable, known to have come but yet I doubt myself when I meet you again

We all look knowing you are coming and yet you never will completely leave us. Even as you exit, we know in some moment, in some time, you will be back, back to your work and labor, tilling and cultivating the things assigned to you to accomplish. 

In times past, I have see abundance from you. 

I have seen good things, softer, more precious things. A gentle heart. A quiet spirit. A fulfilled soul. Things I would never have expected to have received from you. 

You offer generous gifts that many shun, they shy away from the process of receiving. They say the price of those gifts are too high to pay. 

In some distant memory, I recollect that idea that you do bring worthy riches to those who embrace you. 

I try to think on the end product of you, I try to meditate on the purpose 

In purpose I find freedom. 

Because in the hard season, the challenge, the grit, the pain, produces such greater measures. 

And the greater measures bring greater pools of abundance that are poured out like a stream, cool and refreshing to all to come and drink.