Autumn Leaves

I love the Autumn. I have especially loved being up in the north this year for Autumn. I have loved going for walks in the crisp air. I have loved getting cozy in my bed as the nights have gotten cooler. Autumn brings back memories of raking leaf piles and then leaping and lying in them. It brings memories of buying cider from a road-side stand near where we lived when I was younger. There was Autumn of sorts down in Tennessee but it is just different here in the North. It is longer and more brilliant. I have enjoyed so much gazing out the window of my office at the hillside and observing the changing colors.

However, today as I look out most of the trees are bare. There is a sprinkling of golden leaves but for the most part, the leaves have fallen and Autumn seems to be coming to a close. It is November after all. A few weeks will be Thanksgiving and when I was a child, coming back from my grandma's house in Massachusetts after Thanksgiving I was always excited to come home and put up Christmas decorations. I was ready for the next season! Perhaps because I am older and life is changing as well as the seasons, I can not help but be melancholy as I gaze at the bare trees outside my window.

There is excitement in change. It is exciting to see the brilliant colors. It is exciting to watch the green turn to red, orange, or yellow. But the excitement fades as all the leaves eventually turn to brown. They will fall from the tree and are no more.

Job 14:2 says about man, "He springs up like a flower and withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure." We can compare our lives to the changing of the leaves. In the grand scheme of time we have just a moment. What will we make of that moment? We grow, mature, and then fade.

Just as I admire the beauty in the leaves, may the Lord look at my life and smile. In Him is meaning and in Him is life. "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full," (John 10:10). Let us be beautiful for Jesus.

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