Every soul has its season and every season has its soul.
Despite appearances no one's life blooms perennially.
Even the privileged must endure days of drought.
During these times the clouds threaten but bring no rain.
Each day the horizon is pregnant with precipitation.
But the advent of eve leaves him shaking his head, mumbling, "maybe tomorrow.
" Just over the hill, however, his neighbor is busy gathering grain.
This year's rains have given him plenty to fill his once bare barns.
Last year this time he had considered quitting and starting over elsewhere.
What a difference a season makes.
In this regard, life is forever instructing us, and one of its most poignant lessons is this: We must never let the harvest of a few or the drought suffered by many to diminish our diligence.
If we endure and adjust accordingly, we will have our time.
We will be made beautiful in our season.
Difficulties arise, however, when we desire to flourish in someone else's season.
When we exalt this folly we compare the bounty of our neighbor's field with the barrenness of our own.
After awhile we resent their abundance.
If we aren't careful we will curse our once cherished soil.
All of this happens when we fail to realize that every soul has its season, and every season has its soul.
Times and seasons protect our potential.
They teach us to reverence our ground and not just the harvest it produces.
They compel us to remove our shoes and recognize that the ground we stand upon is holy.
Then we can applaud the bounty bestowed upon others, because their ground is holy too.
Realizing this, envy no longer torments and delay ceases to discourage.
Instead we become persuaded that the time is coming when we shall flourish.
Until then, we hope and wait quietly for rain.
Despite the richness of our soil, no one escapes this rotation.
Only through it do we avoid the vanity of blooming too fast, too often.