Is anyone ready for spring yet? Tired of shoveling walkways, slipping on ice, bundling up against the cold? That’s a rhetorical question. March can feel like the longest month in New Hampshire, especially if you’re not one for outdoor winter recreation. Thanks to Ecclesiastes (and The Birds) we have the message that “for everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.” What purpose is this time for in your life? A time to mourn or a time to dance? A time to seek or a time to lose? A time to break down or a time to build up? Could there be a life-giving message in the times we would rather avoid or rush through?

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And what purpose is this time for in the life of our church? Not just the liturgical season of Lent that we have entered into with Christians across the globe; but what is the purpose of Center Harbor Congregational Church in March of 2026? Are we in a time to mourn or a time to dance? A time to seek or a time to lose? A time to break down or a time to build up? It can be scary to think about times of trials in our church. But we are, after all, a community of messy, imperfect humans doing our best to discern God’s will together. We are not immune to seasons of loss, mourning, and breaking down. And neither will we be denied seasons of dancing, seeking, and building up.

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What season are you in today? If it is one you’d rather not to be in, can you still find a purpose in it? Can you see spring ahead of you? The returning of the light, of birdsong, of new life? What season do you see our church in? Can we take this season of Lent to heart and sit with discomfort and conflict, trusting that there is a purpose? Winter always ends with spring. Lent always ends with Easter. The frustrating part is that it’s by God’s design and timetable, not our own. Beloveds, my hope is that we may embrace the seasons of difficulty and discomfort, whether those be in our personal or corporate lives. That we may even discover a new purpose in them. And may we trust that spring, a time of dancing and seeking and building up, will surely come in God’s time.