10: What If This Season Is Formation?

Written By Denisa Nica

Sometimes a season feels so ordinary that it's hard to tell whether anything important is happening at all.

If you've been moving through quiet days that look much like the ones before them, you may know the feeling.

In this episode, I talk about why some seasons are harder to measure than others—and why that doesn't mean nothing is happening.

In this episode, we explore:

  • why ordinary seasons can feel surprisingly unsettling

  • the pressure to make a season count

  • a question that has been changing how I see this summer

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  • I’m Denisa Nica, and welcome to Walking Anyway. You’re listening to episode 10.

    This is a podcast about living faithfully in uncertain seasons—when life feels unclear and nothing is quite settling yet.

    If this is your first time listening in, this is a place for anyone carrying questions of any kind and for any reason, and is not quite sure how to move through this in a way that feels steady and true,

    If this is your experience, you’re in the right place to keep walking anyway. Each week I offer a reflection and a simple way to faithfully walk one more step.

    I’m an author and spiritual director, and the founder of The Table— a contemplative space shaped by a weekly rhythm, where women practice this kind of faithful living together,
    at their own pace, in the middle of their real lives and faith.

    I live in Spain, where life moves a little slower, and that has changed the way I pay attention, and the way I live inside my own life.

    Today I want to talk about the kinds of seasons we tend to overlook, and why they may be shaping us more than we realize.

    Listen in.

    One of the things I still haven't completely gotten used to about Spain is the siesta. Not the idea of it, the actual reality of it. Around two o'clock in the afternoon, things just... close.

    The stores and most restaurants close. Entire neighbourhoods seem to disappear. The first two summers we lived here, I found this de deeply irritating. I remember pulling on locked doors thinking, "What do you mean you're closed? It's Tuesday. It's three o'clock. We are in the middle of a perfectly good workday."

    Nobody else seemed concerned. In fact everyone else appeared to know something I didn't.

    Now, after a couple of years, I mostly plan around it.But every summer it still catches my attention. Because for a few hours each afternoon it can feel as though nothing is happening.

    The streets are quiet. The shutters are closed. The heat settles in. Everything disappears from view. And yet, of course, life hasn't stopped. People are eating lunch, families are gathered around tables. Someone is having a difficult conversation, someone is laughing so hard they can't finish their meal, someone is taking care of an aging parent, someone is holding a sleeping baby, and someone is wondering what to do next with their life. Life is happening everywhere. You just can't see it.

    Then somewhere around seven o'clock the town begins to wake up again.The cafés fill. People reappear. The beach stays busy until late in the evening. Sometimes I look at the clock and it's almost ten o'clock and there is still light in the sky. Not bright daylight, just enough light that the day doesn't quite feel finished.

    And somewhere since we moved here, I’ve started to wonder if we do something similar with our lives. Not the siesta part. The assuming nothing is happening part.

    My daughter is now home for the summer. We're sharing meals again, taking evening walks, and before I know it another week has passed.

    At The Table we've moved into a gentler rhythm too. We're still gathering, but there is more space around everything. Less urgency and more breathing room.

    And every year around this time I notice the same thing. I get a little restless. because nothing seems to be happening. Or maybe more accurately, because nothing seems to be happening that I can point to.

    A few evenings ago I caught myself thinking that I should be using this summer better. And I immediately wondered what I meant by that. Better how?

    Should I be writing more? Getting ahead on the things I’ll need to do in September? Making better use of the extra time? Or have a clearer plan for age all by now? Should I have something more tangible to show for these weeks?

    The strange thing was that none of those questions quite fit.  The summer isn't wasted. The people I love are here. The work that matters is still happening. Life feels full. So what exactly was missing?

    I think what I was really noticing was how quickly I start looking for evidence that a season matters. Something measurable to show for it. Something that I can point to later and say, “see? That’s what happened this summer. That’s why it mattered.”

    And then…I thought: “Maybe summer has a way of revealing what we believe about a meaningful life.

    Or perhaps it reveals what we’ve been using to measure one. Because when the pace slows down, we begin to notice what we've been measuring ourselves by. Maybe that's why summer can feel strangely unsettling. Not because we're doing less. Because we're no longer distracted from some of the questions underneath.

    And so, all that to say, I found myself wondering what actually makes a season matter. What counts as growth? What counts as a life well lived? When I read the Gospels, I'm always surprised by how much walking there is. How many meals. How much of Jesus' life happens in moments that wouldn't have looked important at the time.

    And yet that's where so much of the story unfolds.

    There's a small parable Jesus tells in Mark's Gospel that I've been thinking about lately, as I started wondering about this.

    He says the Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground and then goes about his life. He sleeps and rises, day after day, and somehow the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.

    I keep coming back to that phrase. “He does not know how.”

    The farmer isn't digging the seed back up every morning to see whether anything is happening. He's simply living his life. Morning after morning and evening after evening. And somehow growth is taking place beneath the surface. I think that's one of the reasons that parable feels so comforting to me. Because there are seasons when that's exactly what life feels like.

    You wake up. You make lunch You answer emails. You go for a walk. You call your daughter. You show up for the people you love. You drive to the mall.  You make dinner. You clean up. The days pass.

    And from the outside it can look as though nothing much is happening. And yet Jesus seems completely comfortable with the possibility that something important is happening beneath the surface long before we can see it.

    I think part of me still believes important things should look important. I think I still expect meaningful sessions to feel meaningful while I’m living them.

    I'm not sure I've completely outgrown that.

    Maybe that's why I keep expecting meaning to arrive dressed as clarity. Or accomplishment, or better yet, a breakthrough. In reality, it often it arrives looking much more like ordinary life. A conversation around a table. A walk after sunset. A season that seems quiet from the outside.

    If I'm honest, most of the things that have changed me didn't feel important while they were happening. The move to Spain. Learning how to build a new life. The slow years of being married to Daniel that weren't marked by crisis or celebration, but by the steady work of becoming people together.Learning how to love our adult daughter from a distance.

    Living with questions that took much longer to answer than I wanted them to. Most of those seasons simply felt like.. life.

    And yet when I look back, I can see that something was happening. Not all at once and not in ways I could measure at the time. It was happening quietly, deeply, over years instead of days.

    So I sometimes wonder whether we have a narrow definition of spiritual formation We notice the breakthrough, the answered prayer and that wonderful moment when everything finally becomes clear. But we don't always notice becoming a little less reactive than we used to be.

    Or a little more patient. We don’t always notice when we’re become a little more willing to stay with something difficult instead of immediately trying to escape it. Or when we’re learning how to trust God in the middle of uncertainty and how to receive the life we have instead of constantly reaching for the life we imagined.

    Those changes are harder to measure. Mostly because they rarely arrive all at once, and because the work God is doing is most often so much quiet than we expect. And maybe that's why we miss them and the reason we assume nothing is happening.

    And I wonder if that's what formation often is. Not dramatic change, or a breakthrough moment. but formation happening in places we don't count.

    And maybe this isn't only true for me.

    I wonder if many of us spend a surprising amount of time waiting for our lives to become more meaningful than they already are. Waiting for that breakthrough, that moment of clarity. Waiting for whatever comes next, all the while overlooking the possibility that God is meeting us here. Not after everything is figured out and the answer arrives.

    Here. In the life we're already living.

    So perhaps that's the question I'm carrying into this summer.

    Not: "What should I be doing with this season?” Not: "How do I make this season more meaningful?” Just this: “What if this counts?” What if formation is happening here too? Here. In this July evening. In this conversation. In this life.

    As I record this, the sun is still hanging in the sky even though the day is almost over. In a little while, people will begin making their way back from the beach. Families will gather around outdoor tables. The evening will stretch long past what feels reasonable. Tomorrow will probably look a lot like today. And maybe that's exactly the point.

    So this week, when you're tempted to dismiss a day as ordinary, or wonder whether anything important is happening, I hope you'll pause for just a moment and ask:

    What if this counts?

    Because it may be that God is doing more in this season than you realize.

    And it may be that formation is happening in places we don't count.

    Blessed are we, who are learning that not everything important is immediately visible.

    Thanks for listening to episode 10 of Walking Anyway.

    I hope this simple practice of wondering what God may be doing beneath the surface of your ordinary days helps you keep walking anyway, trusting that formation is often happening long before we can see it.

    Because the way you’re walking through this summer is already forming something steady in you.

    If you’re wanting a place to actually practice this—not just think about it—you can begin with a 21-day guest seat inside The Table.

    It’s a quiet space where you learn to notice and name what God might be doing beneath the surface of your ordinary days, and where you don’t have to do that on your own.

    If this episode resonated with you, you can follow the show wherever you listen to podcasts, and if you’d be willing to leave a rating or review, it helps more people discover Walking Anyway and join us here each week.

    And if someone came to mind while you were listening today, maybe send this episode to them too.

    As always, you can find me at denisaonica.com., or on Instagram at denisa.o.nica where I post almost daily on Instagram stories. I’d love to see you there.

    As you step back into your day, notice what stayed with you and let that be enough for today. And just like light moving through a room— you don’t need to see everything at once to keep living faithfully here.

    Writer Madeline L’Engle once said: “We are all, every day, becoming.” I think that’s a good place to end today.

    Thanks for listening…and  I’ll be here with you next time.

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09: Summer Doesn’t Feel Like A Break