A Season for Everything by Fiona Lloyd

Those of you with too much time on your hands might notice a slight difference between this month's bio and all my previous ones.

How are you supposed to walk in these?

For the benefit of the rest of you, I'll explain: Last week my youngest turned 18, so I now have three grown-up children. This makes me feel (a) old and decrepit; and (b) nostalgic for the days when they were all tucked up in bed by seven o'clock, instead of lolloping around the house till way past my bedtime, leaving half-empty glasses and vertigo-inducing sandals in their wake.

All this for one small child?

If I'm honest, though, it wasn't all cuddly stories on the sofa and sun-drenched days in the park when they were younger. There were lots of good bits, but I don't miss the screaming fits at two in the morning, or the fact that the simplest of outings required military planning and an accompanying pantechnicon of equipment.

The writer of Ecclesiastes (a cheerful soul, if ever there was one) wrote about viewing our lives in seasons. If we try and cling onto a season that is past, we risk missing the potential blessings of a new one. God calls each one of us to move on to new situations at various points in our lives.

As writers, this may mean trying a new genre, or producing material for a different audience. Maybe we need to brave that local writers’ group, or decide to submit that manuscript we’ve been polishing to the point where we now need prescription-strength sunglasses to read it. So I'm challenging myself to look forward to - and rejoice in - the new things God has in store for me ... what about you?

Fiona Lloyd works part-time as a music teacher, and serves on the worship-leading team at her local church. She enjoys writing short stories, and is working on her first novel. Fiona self-published a violin tutor book in 2013, and blogs at www.fjlloyd.wordpress.com. She is married with three grown-up children. Fiona is ACW's membership secretary.