The Season I Didn't Know I Was Entering

There is something strange about arriving at a new season when you are already tired.

You would think a new season would feel exciting.

Fresh.

Full of energy.

Like standing at the beginning of something with your hands wide open and your heart ready for whatever comes next.

But sometimes a new season does not arrive like that.

Sometimes it arrives quietly.

Sometimes it arrives while you are exhausted.

Sometimes it arrives while you are still carrying things from the season before.

And sometimes you only realise you have entered it when you stop for a moment and look around and realise that things have changed.

That is where I find myself now.

Tired.

Grateful.

And quietly aware that something is shifting.

There are things in my life that have been sitting in uncertainty for a while that are no longer uncertain.

The administration is done.

The paperwork has been worked through.

The details have been organised.

The things that needed to be locked in are locked in.

Even the date that once existed somewhere in the future as something I would eventually have to deal with now has a number attached to it.

September 11.

That is the date of my finger surgery.

It is strange how a date can suddenly become real.

For weeks and months, something can exist as a possibility.

Something you know is coming.

Something you have talked about.

Something that sits somewhere in the background of your mind.

Then suddenly the date is confirmed.

September 11.

Now it is no longer simply something that will happen.

It is something I am walking toward.

And perhaps that is one of the things that makes new seasons uncomfortable.

They eventually stop being theoretical.

At some point, you have to walk into them.

I have spent enough of my life around hospitals to know that there is a particular feeling that comes when a medical procedure moves from discussion to reality.

I know what hospitals smell like.

I know the sound of monitors.

I know the strange rhythm of waiting.

I know the conversations that happen quietly.

I know what it feels like to lie there and surrender control to people who know what they are doing.

I know what it means to be on the other side of the hospital bed too.

Working within Queensland Health has given me another perspective entirely.

I have seen people arrive carrying fear that nobody else can see.

I have watched families wait.

I have watched people try to make sense of news they never expected to hear.

I have seen how quickly life can become smaller when health becomes uncertain.

And perhaps because I have experienced both sides of that world, I do not take any of this lightly.

So yes, I am tired.

But I am also grateful.

Grateful that the surgery has a date.

Grateful that the administration has been worked through.

Grateful that there is a plan.

There is something deeply comforting about having uncertainty replaced by a simple piece of information.

September 11.

I do not know everything that will happen between now and then.

But I know where the road currently leads.

And sometimes that is enough.

There is another change happening around me that feels completely different and yet somehow connected.

Kings Runaway Bay has a new location.

Coombabah State High School.

Another beginning.

Another adjustment.

Another place to serve.

Another group of people.

Another opportunity to show up and simply be present.

I find myself thinking about how often God changes the scenery before we fully understand why.

We get comfortable with one place.

We understand the rhythms.

We know where things are.

We know the people.

We know what to expect.

Then suddenly the location changes.

The familiar becomes unfamiliar.

And we are reminded that perhaps the place was never the thing holding everything together.

God was.

That is something I am learning again.

I think sometimes we attach God's presence to familiar circumstances.

We become comfortable with the way something has always been.

Then when the structure changes, we instinctively wonder whether something has been lost.

But perhaps sometimes God moves us simply to remind us that our faith was never meant to depend upon a building, a routine, a location, or a particular season of life.

The place changes.

He doesn't.

That thought has been sitting with me.

Especially as I work my way through Galatians.

I have been spending time in Paul's words and finding myself confronted again by the radical simplicity of the gospel.

Grace.

Freedom.

Faith.

The danger of returning to the very things Christ came to free us from.

There is something about Galatians that feels particularly relevant when you are tired.

Because tired people are often vulnerable to performance.

When we are exhausted, we start measuring ourselves.

Did I do enough?

Did I pray enough?

Did I work hard enough?

Did I serve enough?

Did I handle that conversation properly?

Did I make the right decision?

Did I get everything organised?

Did I keep everyone happy?

Did I do what God expected?

And somewhere in all of that questioning, grace can quietly become something we believe in intellectually while continuing to live as though we have to earn it.

Paul seems almost furious about that.

Not because obedience does not matter.

But because he understands something we so easily forget.

Christ did not set us free so that we could rebuild the prison ourselves.

That has been speaking to me.

Because I am entering a season where there are plenty of things I can control.

Administration.

Appointments.

Work.

Schedules.

Responsibilities.

Surgery preparation.

Kings.

Writing.

Projects.

There is always something that can be organised.

Always another list.

Always another email.

Always another thing that can be ticked off.

And I am realising how easy it is for organisation to become a substitute for trust.

If I can just get everything sorted, perhaps I will finally feel at peace.

But life does not work that way.

There will always be another thing.

Another appointment.

Another unexpected problem.

Another change.

Another season.

Perhaps peace does not come from finally having everything under control.

Perhaps peace comes from realising that I never actually did.

That is a humbling thought.

And strangely, it is also freeing.

The surgery is booked.

The administration is done.

Kings Church has moved to Coombabah State High School.

Galatians is open on my tablet.

And I am tired.

There is no point pretending otherwise.

I am tired in the way that comes from carrying responsibilities for a long time.

Tired from thinking.

Tired from organising.

Tired from trying to make sure things are done properly.

Tired from the constant mental noise that comes when you care deeply about the things you have been entrusted with.

But underneath that tiredness is something else.

Gratitude.

Real gratitude.

Not the kind that pretends everything is easy.

The kind that looks directly at the difficulty and says:

Still, thank You.

Still, God, I am grateful.

I think there is a maturity in that kind of gratitude that I did not understand when I was younger.

When I was younger, I often thought gratitude meant feeling good about life.

Now I think gratitude is deeper than that.

Gratitude is being able to look at a complicated life and still recognise the fingerprints of God.

It is being able to say:

This is hard.

I am tired.

I don't understand everything.

But I can still see that I have been carried.

That distinction matters.

Because faith is not pretending that everything is wonderful.

Faith is learning to recognise God's goodness even when everything is not wonderful.

I have had enough seasons now to know that life does not move in straight lines.

There are seasons of building.

Seasons of breaking.

Seasons of waiting.

Seasons of healing.

Seasons where everything seems to accelerate.

And seasons where nothing seems to move at all.

There are seasons where God feels incredibly close.

And there are seasons where you keep praying even when you cannot feel anything.

I wrote recently about the love of God and how, over twenty-three years of following Christ, I have become less convinced that I understand it and more convinced that I have experienced it.

That thought keeps returning.

Because when I look at this new season, I do not necessarily feel spiritually powerful.

I do not feel like I have everything figured out.

I feel tired.

But perhaps that is not a problem.

Perhaps I have spent too many years believing that strength always looks like energy.

Maybe sometimes strength looks like continuing while tired.

Maybe faith looks like opening Galatians when you would rather close the book.

Maybe faith looks like showing up at Kings in a new location.

Maybe faith looks like making the appointment.

Maybe faith looks like accepting September 11 without allowing the date to consume every day between now and then.

Maybe faith looks like saying:

God, I do not know exactly what this next season will look like.

But You do.

And I trust You.

There is something else in Galatians that keeps pulling at me.

Freedom.

Paul writes about freedom in a way that does not sound like the freedom our culture usually sells us.

Our version of freedom often means doing whatever we want.

Paul's version is different.

It is freedom from the impossible burden of proving ourselves.

Freedom from trying to become worthy enough.

Freedom from measuring our relationship with God by our performance.

Freedom to live from grace rather than constantly trying to earn it.

I think that is something I desperately need in this season.

Because I can already feel the temptation to turn this next chapter into another project.

Another thing to manage.

Another thing to optimise.

Another thing to get right.

But I do not think God is asking me to perform my way through this season.

I think He is asking me to walk through it with Him.

There is a difference.

One produces pressure.

The other produces relationship.

I have been thinking about that in relation to the surgery.

There is nothing particularly spiritual about an operation.

It is a medical procedure.

There will be appointments.

There will be preparation.

There will be recovery.

There will probably be discomfort.

But perhaps the sacredness is not in the procedure itself.

Perhaps it is in the way we learn to trust God inside ordinary things.

I used to think God was most present in the extraordinary moments.

Now I am not so sure.

Perhaps He is just as present in the waiting room.

In the paperwork.

In the drive to an appointment.

In the conversation with a doctor.

In the quiet morning before work.

In the coffee that has gone cold because you got lost inside your own thoughts.

In the pages of Galatians.

In the new location at Coombabah.

In the tiredness.

In the gratitude.

In all the ordinary pieces of a life that somehow become sacred because God is there.

That thought has brought me more peace than I expected.

Because it means I do not have to wait for some huge spiritual moment to know God is near.

He is already here.

I think that is something I have learned through suffering.

When you have lived through enough difficult seasons, you stop needing everything to be dramatic.

You begin appreciating ordinary things.

A normal morning.

A body that is functioning.

A job.

People you can serve alongside.

A book of Scripture open in front of you.

A plan.

A date.

A place to go.

A reason to keep moving.

These things can look incredibly small until you have lived through seasons where small things were everything.

I think about my younger self sometimes.

The person who went through surgeries.

The person who knew hospitals long before he understood why life could be so fragile.

The person who would eventually walk through addiction and mental health struggles and heartbreak and loss.

The person who would make mistakes he wished he could undo.

I wish I could sit beside that younger version of myself for a while.

I think I would tell him something simple.

You are going to survive things you cannot imagine yet.

Not perfectly.

Not without scars.

Not without questions.

But you will survive.

And somewhere along the way, you are going to discover that survival is not the end of the story.

God is going to teach you how to live.

That is perhaps the biggest difference between surviving a season and being transformed by it.

Survival says:

I made it out.

Transformation says:

I am not the same person who went in.

I think that is where I am now.

Not at the end.

Not finished.

Not healed from every old thing.

Not free from every struggle.

But different.

And perhaps this new season is another opportunity for that difference to deepen.

September 11 will come.

Kings will continue in its new location.

Galatians will eventually give way to another book of Scripture.

Work will continue.

Life will continue.

There will be days when I feel strong and days when I feel completely exhausted.

There will be prayers that seem to be answered quickly and others that take much longer than I would like.

There will be things I understand and things I do not.

That is life.

But I do not want to enter this next season believing I have to control all of it.

I want to enter it grateful.

That is what keeps coming back to me.

Grateful.

Not because everything is easy.

Because it isn't.

Not because I know exactly what happens next.

I don't.

Not because I have finally become the person I always thought I should be.

I haven't.

I am still becoming.

Still learning.

Still being corrected.

Still being shaped.

Still healing and learning to let go.

Still opening Scripture and finding that God somehow speaks into places I did not realise were still tender.

Still discovering that grace reaches further than my ability to understand it.

Still learning that God's love does not disappear when I am tired.

Perhaps especially then.

So I am stepping into this new season slowly.

I am not going to pretend I am full of endless energy.

I am tired.

But I am grateful.

And maybe that is enough.

Maybe the new season does not require a stronger version of me.

Maybe it simply requires a surrendered one.

A man willing to say:

God, here is September 11.

Here is my work.

Here is Kings.

Here is this new location.

Here are the things I have managed to organise.

Here are the things I still cannot control.

Here is my tiredness.

Here is my gratitude.

Here is my faith, even when it feels small.

Here is my uncertainty.

Here is everything I am carrying.

I give it to You.

And then perhaps the most important thing is to stop.

To breathe.

To open Galatians.

To remember that freedom is not found in carrying everything perfectly.

It is found in Christ.

The One who loved me before I understood His love.

The One who stayed when I was certain I had wandered too far.

The One who was present in the hospital rooms, the wilderness seasons, the mistakes, the recovery, the questions, the silence, and the ordinary mornings.

The One who has never once needed me to pretend that I am stronger than I am.

So I am walking into this next chapter tired.

But not hopeless.

Uncertain.

But not abandoned.

Still carrying things.

But no longer convinced I have to carry them alone.

There is a surgery date on the calendar now.

There is a new place for Kings.

There are pages of Galatians still waiting to be read.

There is work to do.

There are people to serve.

There are things to heal.

There are things to learn.

And there is grace.

Always grace.

Perhaps that is what this new season is really about.

Not becoming someone entirely new.

But learning to live more deeply as the person God has been forming through every season that came before.

The tiredness is real.

So is the gratitude.

And as I step forward, I think I am finally learning that both can exist in the same heart.

I do not have to choose between them.

I can be tired and still trust.

I can mourn and still rejoice.

I can be uncertain and still believe.

I can be wounded and still worship.

I can be unfinished and still be loved.

And perhaps that is enough for today.

Not knowing everything.

Not controlling everything.

Not having every answer.

Just knowing the One who walks into the next season with me.

And for now, that is enough.

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About the Author

Dylan Verdun Sullivan is the founder of Refined by Fire Press and an Australian author indexed in the National Library of Australia. As a Level 7 Local Guide with over 6.1 million views on Google Maps, he documents the intersection of faith, recovery, and the light found in ordinary places.

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