Seasonal Adjustments

September has always felt when the real ‘new year’ actually commences: from the beginning of the academic year with its deluge of first day at school snaps (the joys of Instagram – one can partake in all my little friends’ first big days!), through to the fashion week footage I scroll through each day and all the email drops from websites I have no business subscribing to with enticing titles such as ‘Your Most Stylish Season Yet’, ‘Beautiful Coats and Outerwear Just Added’ or the more to the point ‘Just In: Erdem, The Row and Prada’ (hey, why waste valuable click consideration time when you can just put the key ‘key words’ right up front?).  Add to this the fact that if one is anywhere in the northern hemisphere the weather takes a distinct change both in shortening days and increasing chill factor, and you have the perfect storm for considering making changes be they in clothing, activities or attitude. No matter that technically it’s the fourth and final quarter of the calendar year, here’s one final signpost to try, do and be something new with vigour and more critically, purpose.

Purpose is one of those topics like love, faith, money and destiny that appear in the bible plentifully. Call them season perennials (like denim for instance) but they are riffed upon, extrapolated upon and in prayer and fellowship groups debated over at length. The fact that purpose probably gets as much consideration time as it does is because it goes to the heart of the matter of who we are, why we’re here and what we are meant to do in the interim between birth and eternity:

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Proverbs 19:21

This particular verse, landing in the latter part of Proverbs 19 is both a cautionary warning and encouragement all in one. You see, no-one can cover all bases quite like the word of the Lord as this verse reveals. The first part: ‘many are the plans in a person’s heart’ resonates because here is the thing; even when we have a clear idea of the direction we wish to take and the pace at which we want to do it, things can still go awry. We can have so many ideas, maybe even too many plans and thoughts of both ways forward and exactly what our end destination looks like. Even when we know a lot, we still do not know it all, as the second part of the verse reveals pertinently, ‘but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.’ Humility in approach is critical to living dynamically in the Lord. An appreciation that however fantastic our own self generated ideas and plans are, to truly flourish they must be rooted in and directed by an eternal agenda cannot be underestimated. Rather than diminishing our role, making us mere pawns in our Almighty’s already pre-destined master-plan, it elevates all of us to the role of co-creator, participating actively and intimately in God’s work – being utilized in our own unique way to manifest his glory, to solve problems, to sow love, hope and joy.

As I type this, I am going through quite the transition season of my own, as I step into fully what I am meant to be doing in my life and with no lingering sideway glances or worse yet, backward ones into what was or indeed, could have been. To say such seasons are not filled with trepidation would be gratuitous mendacity on my part. I oscillate between fearing that this is mad-cap postulation of my own design, to querying that if this is exactly what I am meant to be doing then why the flip was I not doing it sooner?  But because God is kind and gracious I have been receiving  signs aplenty that this precisely where I am meant to be and what I am meant to be doing, and guess what maybe sooner would have actually been a hot mess and later is actually, just right. Obviously, not all is in place: sartorially, I am still searching for the perfect coat (among other things), and there has been a mentalist sweep in terms of how I spend my time, who I spend it with and how I use my particular gifting, but if like the author of Proverbs implores, I remain focused on the Lord’s purposes prevailing in my activities, these seasonal adjustments can actually be more fun than stressful. If  as you read this things are resonating and you are having a bit of a moment in this new season and final quarter of the year, look no further than Proverbs 19:21 to keep you hope filled, excited and poso as you work towards being all that you are called to be. Because this blog is called Cool Chic and in Christ I end with, my (so far) winning look from the Fashion Week Season, courtesy of the one and only Tom Ford. If the good Lord had gifted with me the legs to do this ensemble justice (or helps me with the discipline to do the necessary lunges and squats to transform what I currently have in time for Spring Summer 2018), I will be wondering next summer dressed like this.