Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year. The bright colors, the crisp air, the geese flying overhead.
Each year I am not able to pinpoint exactly when autumn begins. Did it begin when I stepped out of the house for a walk after dinner and noticed that it was already almost dark? Was it when the air was chilly enough that I had to throw on a sweatshirt? Was it when I found the empty shells of butternuts and walnuts strewn across my lawn? Or was it when I felt the crunch of fallen leaves beneath my feet?
Autumn begins each year with a slow fade. . . . a slow giving up of the joys and blessings of summer to give way to something altogether different, but equally, or perhaps more beautiful.
So it is with the changing seasons of my life. Not long ago I was in the midst of a long, beautiful, and intense summer season. The season of raising my four children was filled with the busyness of parenting, of activities ranging from 4-H to Little League and volleyball, gymnastics, and dance. The season of family gatherings, Sunday dinners around a full table, trips to the water park, and annual camping trips to the lake. The season of Sunday school and VBS; of teaching full time, of science fairs, competitions, and field trips. The season of watching out for my widowed Mom and gradually becoming her caregiver.
Like the progression of summer to fall, I can’t pinpoint when the changes began, and I am not sure exactly where I am on the continuum. But I am feeling the changes. Within the span of just over a year, I resigned from my teaching job, I became an empty nester, and my mother passed away.
For me, the changing seasons in my life have been a stripping away of identity, of the things that have been important to me in the summer of life, the things that have given me purpose. The process of letting go has been painful at times, and I find myself wondering, “What is left?”
I find hope in a simple lesson about photosynthesis I taught in Jr. High science class.
The green chlorophyll in the leaves breaks down in autumn revealing the brilliant orange, red, and yellow colors that have been concealed all summer by the green pigment of the chlorophyll.
In the same way, the pieces that made up the busy summer of my life are breaking down and changing, revealing something even more beautiful.
What is left is the most beautiful of all; The most important identity – the one that has been a part of me since an August day when I was fifteen and gave my life to Jesus – my identity as a child of God.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Gal 2:20 ESV
*This was first published as a guest post on Julee Wilson's blog, There Go My Marbles. You can check out Julee's blog here: https://tgmmarbles.wixsite.com/website