Seasonal Reflections...

You can feel it in the southern air...there is a cooler, crisper feel to the breeze. Yes, it's fall. Time for Halloween, tailgates and all things pumpkin. Time for the green leafy summer ceiling of the mighty oak trees and sycamores to shed their foliage in a menagerie of color...break out the cider, the blankets and start making chili, because it is that time again...

Fall...

I was drinking my coffee this morning and contemplating the turn of the seasons as I watched the squirrels run across the treetops that is now my backyard view. When we lived in Arizona our Octobers were marked with azure blue skies, sunny mornings that had a cooler feel to them (like 70 degrees) and you just knew that the intense heat of summer was loosening its grip on the Sonoran Desert. Despite the fact that the afternoon temperatures would still climb into the mid to late 90's, the promise of autumn whispered in the desert breeze.

I digress...

It is very different here, living in the Georgia pines...October is met with earlier, darker evenings, cooler breezes and turning leaves. The green of summer looks tired, older, and ready to shed everything and sleep until the warmth of spring wakes up the giant trees...

That's how I feel.

This has been a rough year. We have battled, we have lost. We have redefined our normal as "empty nesters" and are truly at a point where we do not know where we are going or where we will end up. Our well planned life has been shaken, turned upside down and poured out once again...and now my "leaves" are turning and ready to drop so I can be reborn in the spring.

Fall...

The interesting thing about fall is that even in the transition, the trees flash a beautiful color of change. Instead of turning brown and shriveling up, they display vibrant oranges, yellows and reds...colors so deep and amazing that it is evident that God paints them with only the perfect colors that He can produce. They do not go quietly into the night, instead they adorn themselves in their final finery and dazzle us with unbelievable beauty.

I am in transition, too...

I am ready to be reborn, redirected, redefined. It is time. My leaves have budded, grown green and strong and now are turning into red and yellow....before they drop to begin again....our normal once again is redefined...

Sigh...

I am reading the Book of Isaiah and this morning's passage was strangely appropriate to my somber mood....

Yes, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of Your hand.

-Isaiah 64:8

Clay in the potter's hand...just like the last turning leaf something beautiful and perfect arises in the depth of transition. We are being molded into something so much better, something that we never considered before...

Just like the falling leaves, we have to hit the bottom before we can be reborn.

I am ready...just watch me.