Reason, Season, and a Lifetime...By Anonymous

"People walk into your life for one of three spells. Some come for a reason, some for a season...and some for a lifetime.

People who come in for a Reason are the ones we usually call godsends. Thats because they are. They come into our lives when we pray for something or need something desperately...when we need support, physical, emotional, or spiritual. When we absolutely need another person to come to the party and take the scene by storm, they arrive. We pray, and providence answers. These people usually have a stunning impact on us. We are unable to process anything around them. We reel under their charm and they make us feel ecstatic. Thats what they are there for. They are there for a Reason.

Then, uneventfully, they walk out. Nothing has to happen for them to walk out. Our relationship with them just ends. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they just walk away. The reason for them coming into our lives is served. Our prayers have been answered and now we both have to move on.

People who come for a Season do so because its our turn to learn something from others. It can be something we have not been fortunate enough to learn, something we have a wrong perception about, or simply something totally new. They walk into our lives and bring us experience or laughter. We realize, as we are with them, that we are changing into someone that we wouldn't have been able to, by ourselves. We learn a lot. And we grow. These people bring us tremendous amount of joy. But only for a season. And seasons change. People change too and it can't be helped. The experiences though stay with us for a while after these people leave.

And there are those who come into our lives for a lifetime. Their arrival is rarely ceremonious. They walk into our lives and we barely take notice. They may not have the most beaming personalities or a charismatic aura. They are usually regular people who grow on you and you get comfortable. You get used to having them around and a bond develops. Something that can't be explained but can be clearly felt. Our interaction with them teaches us lessons for a lifetime. Our job is to simply be a good student and learn these lessons well. We should love these people and apply the learning in all our relationships. These people will never walk out on you. You can try to shut them out, but you can do so only physically. This relationship, being one of a lifetime, will be fraught with change, acceptance, regret, and realization.

The key is to identify which persons in our life are there for reasons, seasons, and a lifetime. The catch here is that if we try hard enough, we can convert one kind to the other. Because, and the bottom line remains, people change. And yet, this conversion is time bound. Once people leave, it is very difficult to get them back.

The tragedy of life is that we often cannot identify some people correctly. Thats because the length of these spells cannot be predicted. Reasons may last for years and seasons for decades. A lifetime can be lived through moments separated from each other by years. Its not all clean cut and thats what makes it difficult to identify.

So make sure you let go the ones who were there for a reason, learn from the ones who were there for a season, and keep the ones who are there for a lifetime."