When I see rhubarb I am immediately transported to my 8th year here upon the earth. 1992 to be exact. My lil' sis and I would pick rhubarb from our neighbors garden and "fry" it on the base of an old coffee pot we had found and plugged in by an extension cord from the garage. Don't laugh. It was delicious to our kiddie tastebuds.
We had the coolest old house then, too. There was a cupboard in the hallway just big enough to be my "office". I would fill empty milk jugs with hot water to keep me warm and decorate the walls with the awesome pictures featured in my Clubhouse and Highlights magazines. Much to my parents' delight, I even pried away the baseboard in the kitchen to make a hole for my extension chord. A girl needs electricity to keep up with her 30-book-per-library-visit habit.
My sweet momma always supported the business woman in me, too. I would ask her to take me to Big Lots to buy starch, cleaning supplies and canned goods. I would then resell the items to her, at very inflated prices. Such a lil' genius was I! (Too bad I can't get her to do that now!)
I digress.
Wonderful feelings flood me when I think about certain times in my life.
Have you ever visited a childhood haunt or your elementary school....feeling nostalgic, but unable to regain that "feeling" you thought you would find?
I have been let down on more than one occasion, feeling that a "place" could bring back a "time". It simply can't. That is why the writer of Ecclesiastes so eloquently wrote of times and seasons.
Ecclesiastes 3
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
Jesus, Let my joy be complete in You and help me to be happy during every season of life... Including this one.
