Texas Heart Journal | Page 008

Some Things Were Only Meant for a Season

I've been thinking about seasons lately.

Not the weather kind.

The people, places, dreams, opportunities, roles and versions of ourselves that belong to us for a while... and then don't.

I think I've spent a lot of my life believing that if something was good, I was supposed to figure out how to keep it.

If it mattered, protect it.

If I worked hard to build it, keep building.

If I prayed for it, surely I wasn't supposed to walk away from it.

And if something ended?

Well, then something must have gone wrong.

I'm not so sure about that anymore.

I'm beginning to understand that something can end without having failed.

That's a very different way of looking at life.

Because not everything that enters our lives comes with a lifetime assignment.

Some things come to teach us.

Some come to stretch us.

Some introduce us to people we needed to know.

Some give us exactly what we needed during a particular chapter.

Some show us what we're capable of.

Some help us survive a version of life we couldn't have gotten through without them.

Some simply bring us joy for a while.

And then...

the season changes.

That doesn't make what happened before meaningless.

It doesn't mean we made the wrong decision.

And it doesn't mean we have to rewrite the story and turn something beautiful into something ugly just so we can justify leaving it behind.

Maybe it was good.

And maybe it's complete.

Both can be true.

I think that's the part I'm understanding differently these days.

I've had businesses, ideas, relationships, opportunities, plans and dreams that I once couldn't imagine my life without.

At the time, they fit.

They mattered.

I poured myself into them.

And some of them helped make me the woman I am now.

But the woman I am now doesn't necessarily need everything the woman I was then needed.

That's not betrayal.

That's growth.

There are things we keep carrying simply because we remember how much they once meant to us.

We don't even stop to ask whether they still belong.

We just keep making room.

Keep maintaining them.

Keep trying to breathe life into them.

Keep telling ourselves:

But I worked so hard for this.

But this used to mean so much to me.

But what if I regret letting it go?

And maybe the better question is:

What if its purpose has already been fulfilled?

What if you don't need to fix it?

What if you don't need to force another chapter?

What if you don't need some dramatic ending, explanation or reason to make leaving acceptable?

What if you can simply say:

That mattered to me.

I'm grateful it happened.

And I know its season is complete.

There is something incredibly peaceful about that.

Because then you don't have to be angry at the past to walk toward the future.

You don't have to convince yourself you never wanted it.

You don't have to diminish what it meant.

You don't have to regret the time you gave it.

You can honor what was without requiring it to become what will be.

And I think sometimes that's exactly what God is asking us to do.

Not destroy it.

Not resent it.

Not call it a mistake.

Just stop trying to make a season permanent because we're afraid of what comes after it.

There are things I can look back on now and understand:

Oh.

That's what that was for.

I couldn't always see it while I was living it.

But I can see pieces of it now.

What it taught me.

Who it introduced me to.

What it pulled out of me.

What I learned I wanted.

What I learned I never wanted again.

What it prepared me to build later.

And maybe that's enough.

I don't need every chapter to continue forever in order for it to have mattered.

Neither do you.

So if something in your life feels different now...

If you've been trying to make yourself want something the way you used to...

If you're holding onto a role, dream, relationship, idea or version of yourself simply because it once meant everything...

maybe you don't need to immediately ask:

How do I save this?

Maybe first ask:

Has this season done what it came here to do?

And if the answer is yes...

You can be grateful.

You can honor it.

You can take everything it gave you.

And you can keep walking.

Some things were only meant for a season.

That doesn't make them a mistake.

They served their purpose.

Let the season be complete. 🤎

Texas Heart Journal | Page 008