Seasons.  Most of us experience a change in seasons about four times a year.  Where I live, it seems like you can experience at least two of them in one week.  Like right now.  We are supposed to have some severe weather; while Monday it was cold and in the 20’s.  Go figure.  Seasons indeed change, just as the seasons in our lives. I have experienced such a change of late.  I am no longer teaching.  I taught in the 80’s for five years, then stayed home to be a mom to the two wonderful sons that God blessed us with.  I also was able to homeschool them, something I would do all over again.  During those years on and off I worked at a Crisis Pregnancy Center, as a radio announcer, Bible study teacher, and many other things.  As with many, life offered its “ups and downs” through deaths, storms, health issues, etc.  But God got us through each and every thing, each and every time. I had been praying that the Father would release me from my teaching job for several years.  I knew He had given it to me (in one day I might add, when I did not know one was available), so I knew that He would release me when it was time.  I knew that the season would be over one day and I would go on to other things He had for me to be involved in.  Unbeknownst to me, I had been released about two years earlier, but I was waiting for a “job” to fall in my lap before I could move on.  I found out if I worked 8 more years, I would pull a small retirement.  I had to hang on!  A dangling carrot of sort. Almost daily I wanted to stop working.  The laws governing special education were tedious and required an incredible amount of paperwork.  My students had more issues than ever before, and I was unable to give them all they needed.  I felt as though I were being wrapped over and over by a strong rope and literally losing myself.  I was getting lost, and I wasn’t hearing the voice of God.  I simply was so drained that I hardly recognized it anymore. So on October 1, after much prayer and confirmation…I resigned my position.  I had been through skin cancer and severe hair loss the past summer. The total body hair loss was most likely stress, as three doctors pointed out.  I am not saying that the skin cancer came from stress, but I know that it was a contributing factor. I took a step out in faith.  I had to believe that God would take care of us.  He always had, and He wouldn’t stop now.  I found some online work and starting selling some wreaths and craft items I so loved to make.  I was overwhelmed with the confirmation He gave me over and over in His word. I am not going to pretend to understand all that is going on.  I just know that He is faithful.  I believe that I am healing.  I did not know how bad I felt until now.  A month has passed and I feel like my old self again.  I can minister and love on people with a full supply.  I am no longer empty, nor drained like I was.  I am sleeping, and I am not losing nearly as much hair!  And it is growing back as well!!  I did master the “comb over” since my hair has always been curly and thick! So my encouragement today is this:  1.) Listen.  Don’t think He is not speaking to you, He is..sometimes the noise of this world drowns Him out.  2.)  Just as the temperatures, our “seasons” in life change.  One day you are with your little boys on the beach, and the next thing you know you are 53 years old and writing about it on a blog.  But enjoy the ride…He is always working and loving us. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts your thoughts”. Isaiah 55:8