by Pastor Douglas Brauner
… and a Time to Melt Snowmen
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…a time to break down, a time to build.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1,3b English Standard Version
The average October snowfall in Colorado Springs is 3.4 inches, however, in October of 1997 a snowstorm dumped twenty-three inches of wet snow on the city. A family could build many snowmen with that much snow.
Though I have seen snow fly in June in Colorado Springs, it has never accumulated let alone stick on anything. Summer is not the season for building snowmen. If I saved a freezer full of snowballs and attempted to build a snowman in August, it would melt before I finished building. There is a season to build snowmen and another for melting snowmen.
There are seasons in our lives when what we have built must come down. The destruction might be due to the forces of nature, or something else, yet is hard to watch our “snowmen” melt and become nothing more than a puddle on the ground. It is okay and natural for us to grieve what melts.
However, there are also seasons for building new “snowmen,” to build something out of the puddles that have formed from the melted snowmen. God is in the business of both tearing down and building up. He loves us enough that he removes those things that hinder our relationship with him so that he can build something new in us, something that brings peace and joy. In God’s hands, something amazing happens with our puddles.
Jesus was destroyed on his cross, all life removed from his body, yet he rose in victory over death. God brought something new into our world through Jesus, through is suffering, death, and resurrection. There was a time for him to die, and a time for him to live that we might see something rise out of the puddles of our broken lives.
God is active in this season of your life. It might be a painful season of tearing down, or it might be a hope-filled season of building up, but God is at work.
Copyright Family of Christ Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado
