Seasons of Our Lives
By Doug Harrell
Mitchell County
This is May 2020. May of 2019 was the last month that Barbara and I worked full time on the Blue Ridge Christian News and it seems like only yesterday. We both feel so blessed to have been able to publish what we always referred to as God’s Paper. One of the biggest blessings we have had is to watch the continued growth and reach of the paper under new ownership, well not really ownership, since I still feel that it is God’s Paper, but at least new leadership. One of the things that we had always prayed for was that the paper would continue after we were gone and no longer a large part of the direction. My sincere thanks and appreciation to Brian and his team for continuing the work before them.
There are still moments, even days, that I miss the constant interaction with all the people involved, the readers, the contributors, and the advertisers that supported the paper. It left a huge hole in our lives when we were no longer there.
I have said these things to bring it to the point that we all have seasons in our lives that we deal with, times change in a manner that we cannot stop or redirect in so many ways. Looking back at the paper, Barbara, and I both realize that God knew it was time for us to move over, to give up the role of leadership to a younger, more energetic individual. We as individuals don’t always want to admit that we are getting older and not as capable as we once were, we want our youthful vigor to continue and think we can still run the race and carry the load we always had before, but our Lord knows better. As the Bible tells us, there is a time to sow and a time to reap, a time to sing and a time to be sad. The most important thing we can do is to do our best with what talents we have and not hide them under a bucket, to let your light shine brightly from the mountain top as long as God allows you to do that.
I personally have a hard time accepting the fact that my physical strength and stamina is not what it used to be, but give thanks and I hope each of you do as well, for the ability to do and accomplish what I can do. The great commission for each of us is to reach as many with the good news of Christ as possible in whatever way we possibly can, using whatever talents we might have. Regardless of age and ability, I pray that as your seasons change you never, and I never, lose the desire to make some small difference in someone’s life as frequently as possible. We always have the ability to smile rather than frown, to praise rather than complain, to give thanks rather than just requesting more.
Recognize your seasons as a blessing in life, give all you can give, love all you can love, praise all you can praise, be a witness as long as you may live.
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children’s children;” Psalms 103:13-17 KJV
_______________________________________________________________________________
Doug Harrell is a life-long resident of Mitchell County, Owner of Harrell Hill Farms, a member of Bear Creek Baptist Church and former publisher of Blue Ridge Christian News. You can find him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/doug.harrell.77
Find more Life Lessons at https://blueridgechristiannews.com/category/lifes-lessons/
_______________________________________________________________________________
