I have always adored autumn. The colors of the leaves, the still bright skies, the sunrises and sunsets, the chill in the air as the day winds down.
As I drove down the highway the other day I was mesmerized by the beauty of day, of everything I could see.
As often said at this time of year, autumn’s trees reminds us that there is beauty in letting go.
I think autumn is an exhale …
After the newness and freshness of spring …
After the refreshment and reconstruction of summer …
Autumn is the experience of lung cleanings that are exhaled in thanks, in appreciation for the sunshine that might not return tomorrow, in recognition that this beauty will fade so we must be present in it now. It is acknowledgement that dark days are coming, but choosing to not let that reality steal from today.
Until the winter rains fall, until the chill moves into our bones, until the grass withers, the flowers fade and the final leaf falls …
“All people are like grass,
Isaiah 40:6-8
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
Autumn reminds me that it keeps going on … nature, beauty, hope, life. The circle of life has no dark corners, no exit ramp, but that which God gives existence is kept alive in the seeds He plants within each living thing.
There is an autumn in life, as well. A season to exhale the past … joys and sorrows, growing and being cut down, things learned, memories made. We can pause in this autumn of life and see the beauty in our lives. We can look back, as though from a higher vantage point and survey how the many pieces of our lives fit together … that which was never present in the moment. We can exhale in understanding and acceptance that we are no longer in the spring or summer of our lives … and that is okay.
As we look over our lives, we can walk confidently into the next season, knowing that those pieces too will fit together … that we never walk alone.
We may feel as though we are withering, but really … we are doing the good work of dropping seeds into the ground, for many seasons to come.
I love these words of Beth Moore:
Thought I’d raise a little Ebenezer today. In a brutal time, Samuel set up a memorial stone & named it Ebenezer saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”
Ebenezer living is a heaven-raised gaze. Alert & deliberate daily dependence.
Of morning by morning.
Of Give us this day.
Of Today, if you hear his voice.
Ebenezer living is standing in the present moment, aware & awed that here we are, still alive and kicking and kept by God amid a fierce battle or in the wake of a season when we had no clue what we were going to do or how we’d get through.
Thus far my aging hand is still in Keith’s.
Thus far I can still lend some help.
Thus far I can get out of bed, walk dogs. Go to work.
Thus far I still enjoy things like the way a leaf rocks gently in the air, a lullaby, falling to the earth.
That’s far I still believe Jesus died and rose again and, because he did, I am changed & ever changing.
Thus far I still believe in the communion of saints & the fellowship of sacred joys and suffering.
Thus far I still bear my children close and have them in my heart though miles stretch wide between us.
Thus far, brothers & sisters, that which we thought would kill us
didn’t.
The world that we thought would fill us
didn’t.
The Lord who we thought might forget us
hasn’t.
The devil we thought would destroy us
couldn’t.
Here we raise our Ebenezer.
Thus far the Lord.
itsawonderfilledlife 