I love the fall. The crisp, cool air; the brilliant colors of the leaves. It's so incredibly beautiful here on the mountaintop. (OK, the leaves haven't all changed yet, but we're getting close!). The picture at right is actually our "summer" view from the deck. I'll post another one soon to show the difference just a few weeks makes.
As I write, I remember that I love the change of any season. Perhaps I (or "we", if this applies to you) are ready for fall because we're so tired of summer. The heat of the summer has sapped our energy. We're ready to be revitalized, and the shift into fall does just that.
Likewise, fall ends with bare trees, cold dark mornings and piles of dead leaves cluttering the ground. Suddenly, the pristine beauty of a winter day seems so appealing; even better if you get to cover everything in a dazzling layer of snow.
Eventually, though, the long dark nights of winter get dreary and tiresome. At that point, those first hints of spring remind us of what is coming. From our schoolroom windows we can watch the dark tree branches gradually turn the palest green, then darken as the leaves unfold. The daffodils peak through the ground cover and suddenly there is color in our world again.
As spring progresses the flowers fade, the grass grows, and we're ready to swim, to run, to play. Any excuse to just be outside rejoicing in God's world. Until, eventually, we tire of the heat and anticipate the restorative coolness of fall.
Perhaps God provides this continuous cycle of change to keep us fresh; make us feel alive; remind us of his awesome presence and (most importantly) his love and grace. How blessed we are to be a part of this cycle.
For right now, I'm just going to enjoy Fall and get ready to jump in some piles of leaves with the kids.
1 comment:
Good heavens. If that's what the view looks like from your deck, I can see exactly how you could comment on my blog that "it would be easy to get up on top of our mountain and never come down." If the view from my house looked like that, I don't think I'd ever get the desire to drive down into Atlanta.
Here in California's Central Valley, we really only have two seasons--the Hot and Dry Season, and Cool and Wet Season. There are transitions between the two that roughly correspond to Spring and Fall, but they are unpredictable, indistinct, and very brief. We are in one of these transitions now; but for all practical intents and purposes we just entered the Cool and Wet Season (a couple weeks earlier than most years, actually).
I've lived most of my life in California, but I grew up as an Air Force brat, and so we have lived in several places that had four distinct seasons. I miss them. I know, I know; winter is inconvenient, what with the cold, and all that snow to shovel, and with the slippery roads; but I still miss winter. What I wouldn't give to wake up one morning and see a good six inches of snow covering everything!
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