Seasons

I know that official designations have summer lasting another three weeks. But in my simple way of looking at the world, today--being August 31--is the last day of summer. I hiked with a friend at sunrise, which is coming later and later. I used the heater on my Jeep (on full blast) as I drove through the 50 degree morning on my way to the park. I noticed some ridge-top dogwood trees blushing their first maroon colors of the year. The earth is speaking of change, of a season fading and another dawning.

I love change. I often say that I spell change F-U-N. And in my life, many seasons have come and gone. Welcoming children into our home; then watching them take wings and fly. Moving into a brand new work; and then moving on with tears and anticipation of the next. Pursuing one thing with all of my heart; only to find later, perhaps it was worthy of a lesser portion.

Fall is a time of beautiful surrender. Leaves lose their lively green, then let loose and twirl down, after their dying makes them lovelier than ever. The sun fades. The warmth flees into cooler days and longer nights, and my daylight hiking hours become fewer and fewer...but more and more comfortable and indescribably beautiful.

According to scripture, we fade in the same way. We spring up with vigor and life, then fall away under the heat of the sun. And at times my life feels like a wrestling match of struggle with what strength remains within me to stay faithful, God-filled to the end of my days. I long for my life here to leave a legacy, and to fall gently down in a blaze of beauty.

And I invite you to join me in allowing seasonal changes to give you motivation for staying true. Express God-beauty as your season in life dictates. And when the time comes for falling to the earth, perhaps someone somewhere will remember you and where you were in the forest of lives. Maybe they'll walk past your old branch and twig and say: "Right up there is the place where I saw the beauty of my maker."

May it be so.