Reflections on Autumn
By Cara Croft
I love living in Kentucky. One of the reasons I love living in Kentucky is because we get to experience all of the seasons. Each season brings with it joy and frustration. The lovely blooms of spring coupled with the crippling allergies of the pollen. The warmth of summer quickly turned into suffocating heat and humidity. Winters soft, white snow that muffles out the noise of the world yet coupled with depressing grey skies clouding the brightness of the sun.
The fall is no exception. The weather becomes refreshingly cool, the smells of every store seem to be bathed in cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg (aka pumpkin spice). The leaves turn blazing shades of red, yellow and orange. The wind sings a new song as it rustles leaves off their branches onto the ground, only to be trampled on by children (big and small) crunching them under their shoes. Yet in the midst of all of the fall’s beauty, it is a season of what once was alive die in order to make way for something new to live.
I have begun to reflect on the seasons, the earth’s rhythms of life and death. The fall reminds me that there are things that need to die in me too. My friend and I have a running joke that all of our conversations end in discussing death, so it is no surprise that I should eventually blog on the topic. As I study the leaves I ponder “what does the wind of the Holy Spirit need to shake off in me?”. I have to be honest, it hurts. It hurts to see the ugly branches needing to be cut down, turned into sticks and burned in the fire of self-examination. It becomes discouraging to confess the leaves off of my tree and to try and crunch sin beneath the shoes of the gospel. I rake my sinful soul into piles of things that need to be bagged up, dragged to the street and hauled away. I need Christ’s refining bonfire in my soul of dead branches and fallen leaves.
Yet, I have forgotten. In the midst of the messiness and the noisy wind, I have forgotten the beauty. I have forgotten that there is beauty in this death. I have forgotten that there is a purpose in this season. As the trees move more towards nakedness, it is not without a reason. It is a season of hidden growth and life. It is a season that makes way for what is to come. It is a season of anticipation. The things in my soul being burned and blown away are making room for new life, for resurrection. I get caught up in the chaos of the falling leaves and forget there is still order and peace. Sometimes the winds of autumn rattle my soul as loudly as it does the trees. In thinking about the things that need to die I often forget to remember the beauty of death lies in the hope of the resurrection, both a present resurrection and a future one. Yes, God is resurrecting something new in me, but that work has already begun. My humanity needs to be redeemed but it is a work already happening.
As I sit here, eating my pumpkin muffins and drinking my pumpkin spiced coffee, listening to the leaves and watching their descent back to the earth, I ask myself not just what needs to die but what is already alive. The trees may lose its leaves but it does not lose its life and vitality. The chaos of the falling leaves is not out of the control of the hand that is shaking the branches.
May we be reminded during this season that God is already working beautiful things in our souls and those are worth our attention and our delight. It is not just a sting of fire burning away sin, but it is also the warmth and comfort of His Spirit blazing within. Beloved children, God has started a new work in your hearts, let us rejoice and have hope that in this world not all is death. Even in the fall there is life and it is abundant. Falling wheat, Emerging Life. (which is the name of our blog for those who may have missed the connection!)