There Is A Season



Another summer is here. Seasons are such reminders of our past. We recall vacations, celebrations, milestones, and sometimes we recall the toughest losses too. Seasons show us how far we’ve traveled—how much we’ve changed. Seasons can bring hope for what’s ahead.

As a young teen, my daughter cross-stitched Solomon’s words found in Ecclesiastes 3:1. Never having cross-stitched before, she enthusiastically stitched the border, the verse, and then four trees representing each season. Not quite finished, but busy with life, she neatly folded her work and put it away—intending to finish it later.

Recently, she unpacked an old box from her teen years, and there was the nearly finished cross-stitched verse. Taking some thread and a bit of her time, she completed what she’d started fifteen years earlier. Sometimes we begin things in one season, and finish them in seasons much later.

As I gently fingered her careful stitches, I recalled the verse that follows— a time to be born and a time to die—reminding me again that I only have so many seasons to live. We begin life in one season, and finish in another. 


As summer begins, I am celebrating the life of a young woman close to my daughter's age. Christina Ahmann Nevill didn’t get to see this summer—at least not from here. Cancer robbed her of time, but it couldn’t steal her faith in Christ. 

Wisdom poured from her heart. She chose to live in peace and because she did, those around her could too. In a season of disease, she joyfully shared her journey and welcomed us along as she walked towards death.

Christina could see with vision sharpened by closeness to the Lord as he prepared her for the passage she’d soon take.

Plagued with my perpetual earthly vision, Christina helped me to see Jesus better. She didn’t have as many seasons as I've had, but she lived each one for Christ. And she leaves deep footprints from her walk with the Lord. Deep prints, indeed.

The change of seasons is God’s reminder of time. One day each of us will take the walk Christina has taken. Even with cancer’s devastation, leaving behind her family and friends, Christina showed us that the season that matters most is not here—it’s in heaven with Jesus.

And that gives us comfort as we celebrate her life. It also gives us deeper purpose for the time we have left—for to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Read and share Christina's journey here.


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