Those who lived through the 60’s may recognise a song by The Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn! For Christians these weeks of Lent provide a hinge between the seasons of winter & spring & an opportunity for making necessary endings & creating new beginnings.

In his book ‘Necessary Endings’, the theologian Henry Cloud refers to the tasks that a farmer needs to do during the winter season – when everything is quiet. He includes auditing the accounts, preparing machinery & fields, reviewing progress of the past year and planning for the next season. By contrast, the spring is a time for action, buying seed, enabling resources, preparing the soil, sowing, protecting seedlings against pests, and nurturing a vision of the harvest to come. These are separate seasons with distinct tasks.

Few of us are now engaged in farming but the images still run deep & have a resonance. We recognise different seasons in our own life, our communities & in our work places. Sometimes we feel like the seasons have been extended, or blurred together; life has become confused and lost its pattern.

Lent is an opportunity for regaining a perspective and a godly rhythm & grip – on God, & through his grace, on ourselves. To do this what I want to commend is that you reflect on your life & discipleship with the images of winter & spring - & the tasks of the farmer. Consider first what needs to end or be finished. Before we can make new beginnings there is almost always an ending that is required. You can do this collectively as a church community or on your own.

Dr Cloud thinks most of us are not great at endings – especially if painful or difficult. We lack the courage to make an ending we know is for the best. We excuse ourselves or those we care for; we fool ourselves with false hope; we put off what needs to be done. To help you gather strength to make changes, try imagining the future in 12 months if you continue down the same track, doing & saying the same things as you always have done. Imagine how you will feel, how life will be. Drawing on the hurt that brings can provide energy to make an ending.

Most of us need support to make endings that are difficult. Who can you get alongside to remind you of why you need to end something? Who can keep you to your decisions? Space limits me from saying much about spring and new beginnings. But that seems appropriate. It is only when we have made the endings of winter that we are ready to enter the season of new beginnings. We have to follow the pattern. Follow the steps of Jesus may you know that power which strengthened him to make the most seismic of endings and beginnings.

+ Lee