I’m not one of those people who have an absolute favorite season. Each one holds a sense of awe that I expectantly await as that season approaches. Each one holds a beauty all its own. For me it’s:
The smell of the rain in the Spring, the promise of new growth as it washes away everything dirty and dark. The days getting longer, everything shedding its outer layer to welcome the warming of the air. The trees budding with new life which will soon provide shade from the hot summer sun. The unbalance of the atmosphere, storm clouds brewing in the distance as flashes of lightening streak across the sky.
Summer months with longer and hotter days, cooler evenings in front of a camp fire with family or friends. Waking with the light of dawn as early as 5am. The taste of an ice cold beer after playing hard, running, hiking, swimming and biking in the sweltering heat. My Irish skin burning and freckling then tanning and freckling some more. The humidity of late July, celebration of the anniversary when God graced the earth with my existence.
Leaves changing colors as Fall days begin to shorten. The smell of books and pencils, wishing I could go back to school in my love of learning. Hoodies and shorts, tailgate parties and football games. The beautiful changing color of leaves as they die and fall to the earth. The smell and crunching under my feet sound of those leaves and everything pumpkin spice.
The peaceful quietness of snow falling anew in the Winter. The white pureness of everything around me as I feel the crunch of the snow beneath my boots. The way my dog, Bailey, loves to play and push her nose through the snow like a plow and then have a pile of snow on top of her nose when she stops. Sitting by the fire and watching the snow fall, wishing the world could just stop and we all get a snow day. Advent and Christmas, the celebration of Jesus’ birth. The start of a New Year that always holds new promises.
I still can’t choose a specific season in and of itself. I think for me it’s the way our world around us slowly and progressively transforms, continually changing and yet we go about our days barely noticing. We’re so caught up in our own world to notice the world around us. Finding awe in the created instead of the Creator. It’s about what fills our holes, numbs our emotions, meets our desires, captures our minds and makes us and life “good enough”. We ignore the truth about us and the Truth before us. Truth that God is the Creator, the Controller, the Comforter, the Counselor and the Consistent Good Good Father. We go through life hanging on to the past, the pain, the projecting, and the self preservation to hardly notice change has occurred. And do we even stop to ponder the why and how of it? It’s all because of God’s transforming grace. Hard and painful the metamorphosis of a butterfly coming to life with beauty upon its new wings.
So too was my life in 2016…
Jesus, thank You for Your transforming grace that covers the whole earth and little old me since our beginning. May the life giving wings born through the grief and pain of last year continue to carry me in the changing seasons and take me to where your grace will lead in 2017.
Brave Through Grace 