A Time and a Season for Everything

I experienced a part of life today that is normal. I said good bye to a person in my life. A person I have formed a relationship with over the last 9 months. A person that I had 26 conversations with. Today I ended a relationship with someone who I have grown to care and love for. You might be wondering who this person is. Why do I know  how many conversations I had with them? Why did our relationship end today? Why did I say good bye? And why, if this is so normal am I using a perfectly good blog post to write about it? I will tell you why. While this is a normal part of life, this is my first time experiencing this in this capacity. 

Today I said good bye to one of my clients that I will never see again on this side of eternity. I am a counselor. I am in my last week of internship. With that comes termination. I have terminated with client's before. However, this is the first time I have terminated with a client that I have seen for this amount of time. Because of the nature of my profession I  cannot share much about this person with you. However, I can say that my time spent with her was an experience I will take with me as I graduate from my Masters and enter the world of professional counseling. My client was emotional as she said good bye to me today. She shared areas of growth and things that she learned and is taking away from counseling with me. She thanked me for all that I had done. I've done nothing I told her. YOU did this. She replied with, "I had a really good guide along the way." What this client does not know is that I learned just as much, if not more from her. I learned more about myself and about the beauty of life from her story. Saying good bye was really hard for me. Harder than I ever expected. Today I grew as a person and as a counselor. And today God reminded me why He called me to this profession in the first place. I feel connected to this person in a way that I know is spiritual and manifested by God alone. I believe our lives are intertwined for eternity and our relationship was God ordained. Our relationship had to come to an end today. It is a natural part of life and an even more natural aspect of the counseling world. I will have clients come and go my entire life. But today God reminded me that I will always be connected to them and them to me. As I cooperate with God and allow Him to lead and guide my sessions with  my clients His work will be done in them, not mine. And if I do that I can trust that God will not allow any session to be in vein. Most likely, I will never see any of my client's again and as they terminate I hope I don't see them again because that would mean they have accomplished what they needed. Our time is done. My job, God's job is done for that season. For some clients, the sons and daughters of Christ, I believe that I will see them again in Heaven. I believe that they have been placed in my life for a reason. They are a part of my ministry and I believe that God will reunite us in Heaven. I believe I will see this particular client that I have been mentioning once again in Heaven.

Saying goodbye to her got me to thinking about God's time for everything. Ecclesiastes 3 tells us this:

there is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

    a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal,

    a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

     a time to search and a time to give up,

    a time to keep and a time to throw away,

     a time to tear and a time to mend,

    a time to be silent and a time to speak,

     a time to love and a time to hate,

    a time for war and a time for peace.

While doing a SMALL study of this chapter tonight in my pursuit to understand God's time and season for all things I came across something in one of my commentaries I enjoyed:

"Solomon affirmed that God is at work in our individual lives, seeking to accomplish His will. All of these events come from God, and they are good in their time. The inference is plain: if we cooperate with God's timing, life will not be meaningless. Everything will be "beautiful in his time" (vs 11), even the most difficult experiences of life." I find comfort in these words along with Solomon's words. God has a plan and I am just a small part of it but I am a part of it. He will use me if I let Him and when I do I can rest in knowing that I have done my part. 

"Life is something like a doctor's prescription: taken alone, the ingredients might kill you; but properly blended, they bring healing. God is sovereignly in control and has a time and a purpose for everything (Romans 8:28). This is not fatalism, nor does it rob us of freedom or responsibility. Is is the wise providence of a loving Father who does all things well and promises to make everything work for good." 

Commentary: The Wiersbe Bible Commentary by Warren W. Wiersbe