It's Fall ... And Jenn and I are in the one of the most wonderful seasons of our lives! Every Autumn I revisit this song. This live version is from the Autumn of '06.
This year I have three amazing children that I am savoring every second with! I have had a fulfilling journey towards the launching and pastoring of our new church community in the this village that I have grown to love very much. What a season! I am ever mindful though of our painful seasons “in between the seasons.”
Jenn and I wrote song together in the Fall of '02 when we lived in California. We had been married over eleven years. We were in the most difficult time of being "In Between the Seasons."We had been praying and hoping to have children for nearly eight years back then. It's hard to explain how painful that season was. The tears we cried were too many to count. In the context of our hopes to have children, our hearts and hopes were running out.
We were trying to sell our home in the Chicago area. We had built that home and lived in it for less than a year. When we moved to California, we shipped about five boxes of our things - mainly books and clothes. Everything else stayed back in our home back in Chicago until we sold that house about 8 months later.We were living in the small guesthouse of a wonderful retired couple in Pebble Beach. It was furnished with all these old antiques and two twin beds that we had pushed together. Most mornings were foggy and somewhat dreary, but by the afternoon you could see the Monterey Bay in the distance through the front windows.
We were part of a new church with new friends that we grew to eventually know and love much. But in the Autumn of that year, we felt very alone - very much “In Between.” Our year and a half long season at the church prior had become a difficult and painful fit. We were probably a bit hesitant that Fall of ‘02, wondering how the fit would be in our new place of serving.
We wrote "In Between the Seasons" together on a Saturday in October in the Hopkin's guesthouse. We were missing the seasons in the Midwest. We were missing prior seasons, where we soared more than we sorrowed. We were hoping and yearning for the peaks of the seasons to come.
It was in this season, after years of miscarriages and surgeries, that WE became pregnant with our daughter Gabrielle. Jenn spent 6 weeks on strict bed rest in that little guesthouse. But, signs of the better seasons to come were starting to appear.
Our daughter Gabrielle Ashton was born the summer of '03. The start of a season of peaks! I have welcomed and embraced that Gabbi has made a wonderful, terrific wreck of my heart.
We did sell our home back in the Midwest early in ‘03. And we moved into a wonderful home in Monterey that saw the coming home of our first child, the late night cries of Gabbi, the first readings of favorite stories, the first steps and the first Christmas mornings
.
And our season with our church in California grew to be wonderfully memorable and magical. We grew dramatically as the church did the same. Jenn and I found our soul’s ‘north’ again there on the Central Coast of California.
The next seasons were to amazing peaks! Peak after Peak... And likewise, with every season there were to be additional moments in between.
We returned to Resurrection Life in the Grand Rapids in ’06. In that season I started wading into teaching more than singing. It was a safe and wonderful place to ready myself for seasons to come. It was another seasons Peak!
Our son Chantry Dirk was born May of '08. Peaks of the Season! ... I wondered if I would feel as much affection for a son … my love for him shocked me!
Then this year we moved to PA to become part of North Way family. In the holiday season of ’09, we had a wonderful surprise. Jenn was pregnant once again! Our second son Asher Curtis was born in August. I wondered if I would have equal love for another child. I watched as an entire additional ‘wing’ opened in the in halls of my heart.
It was yet, another season’ peak. Our new church launched with great enthusiasm in September.
And so ... This Autumn, Jenn and I do not take for granted this amazing season we find ourselves in.
As we cherish our three children in our new home in the enchanting village of Sewickley, where we now pastor this wonderful new church community, we are ever the more grateful that we have seen it to be greatly true that God can and does lead us well through every season - the wonderful peaks and often the painful seasons "in between.”
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