I love fall.
The crisp scent of autumn leaves as they drift slowly towards earth. The pumpkin chai lattes that scent the air with memory and emotion. The comfort cozy sweaters bring as you pull them from summer storage and wrap them once more around you to keep the chill away. It doesn’t feel at all like fall here now but even as the days stay warm and humidity lingers I see it coming. The leaves are shifting and colours are changing. On recent walks we’ve collected colours and brought them in to lay on our hearth as a tribute of sorts for the work life did this year around us and within us.
I love fall and the sense of possibility that lays within as you watch the old die and begin it’s transition into newness. Oh that transition takes time. There is snow to endure and harsh weather ahead but as the leaves fall around us I can sense possibility in the future and that possibility, that hint of spring to come is enough to get me through the dead of winter. One might call it hope, or perhaps eternal optimism but for me Fall brings with it the promise of new life, the reminder that while death may come it can be beautiful. The reminder that new life, new opportunities will come in the spring. It takes time but they come.
Those opportunities, that new life is there for us all but it’s a matter of seeing it, of waiting expectantly for it. As Christians we should be used to this expectant waiting. We wait expectantly for the child. We wait on the whispers of the Holy Spirit. We wait for the second coming, the entrance of our King. We wait expectantly for God’s investment in us. We should be used to, comfortable even in this thing called expectant waiting.
We should be used to expectant waiting. We should be comfortable in it but are we? Are we actually comfortable during the seasons of discernment and pause? Do we allow God to take the reigns and sit back even when it is cold, harsh and unforgiving at times?
These are the questions I find myself pondering this season. Am I ready for the transitions that lie ahead? Am I willing to let change in, let God in and sit back while guidance and direction comes? Will I move when called to and am I responsive enough to that call? Can I let go? Can I surrender to a new path, a new way?
Big questions. Heavy questions meant to be pondered over that Pumpkin Chai I referred to earlier. May you too ponder your own heavy questions and find that this fall is fruitful for you. Remember that change can be beautiful. Wait expectantly in hope knowing God is with you, goes with you and will stay with you through it all.
