Seasons change. Seasons do not get upset because they are changing. Seasons do not resist change. They do not get upset by it, nor do seasons get befuddled. Seasons do not say that they are to keep on the season they are -- summer or spring or autumn or winter.

Autumn doesn’t say: “Oh, no, I’m not supposed to turn into winter again. That’s not for me. I don’t want to.” Seasons accept the rhythms of their life. They swim with them. They do not call any turn in the road as unfavorable. Snow can melt, and that’s fine. Snow can become sleet, and that’s fine too.

You, on the other hand, refuse to accept some seasons in your life. You welcome change only when the change is your idea and at the head of your list. And if you change your mind after that, you want life to accommodate your change of mind. You want what you want, and yet you may be fickle.

Perhaps you decide you want to be summer all year long.

Some decisions are not yours to make, beloveds.

If you consider that winter is equivalent to age, you may refuse to be winter. You won’t have it. When you were spring, you were eager to be summer.

Some decisions are yours to make, beloveds. To accept what comes to you in life in good grace is one of your decisions to make.

Within each season, there is something you relish. Whatever season of life you are in, there are plusses and minuses. You would gladly accept the plusses, yet you don’t want a minus anywhere near you.

There are matters that you cannot pick and chose. A loved one will get up and leave his body behind. This is dark cold winter for you. If your loved one who left Earth life was young, you have an extra excuse for protesting the event. You may begin to think that this was cruel. Ah, beloveds, life, like the tide, just does its thing. Waves will pick up what is near them. Waves do not wait for this one or that one. The Ocean has no say in what it will pick up. It does not discriminate. If it did, it wouldn’t be the Ocean then. It would be a sieve of some kind.

Some processes and occasions of life are not arguable. From the view from Earth, one thing is right, and another thing is wrong. Regardless, some matters in life are not respecters of the rich or the young or the poor or the old. Life is like Old Man River who just keeps rolling along.

Life has an advantage over you, or a disadvantage, depending upon how you see it. Life does just what it does. It is as if life has been shot out of a cannon. The shots land where they land. Life does not set out to get you. You have to roll with the punches, beloveds, that which you see as punches, jabs, wear and tear and whatever else may bruise you.

Just as the Ocean moves along and the river moves along, so must you. You don’t give up because it’s winter.

Ask for something else than what you have been asking. It is not a little thing to ask for God’s Will and then follow it. You give up a lot of perceived control when you accept God’s Will. Sooner or later, you have to accept anyway. None of what life hands you means that you are not blessed. Accept that you are blessed, and that you also cannot call the shots. Much of the time, beloveds, you wouldn’t know which shot to call.