As I peered out of my kitchen window, I watched as the leaves gently and ever so quietly fell to the ground.
I have always loved this time of year when the leaves begin to change their colors. It has always captivated me that what may appear to others as wilted, dried up, faded dead leaves, I have always viewed as beautiful, vibrant and full of color.
I love to watch the leaves fall one by one from each branch onto the grass. There is something magical about it.
As I stood there looking out my window I began to think about how in Autumn, the leaves turn all shades of different colors, dry up, fall to ground and die; but in the Springtime they grow back, flourish, show their green, and are revived with new-birth.
I sat down at my desk in my kitchen, longing for the words to express all the thoughts that were pouring through my mind. Then I began to understand how in each season of our lives God is also growing and remaking us, too, and giving us an opportunity to become new in Christ.
As I looked a little closer at the leaves just outside my window, I began to appreciate them even more. In my mind they represented renewal.
I began to understand this metaphorically.
By exposing what was once dead, God is able to bring forth a new season within our lives.
I thought about how wonderful it is that the Lord who created the four seasons to bring about patience and a harvest, also created different seasons in our lives for specific purposes. To help shape us, mold us, show us how to cope, and create in us who He intended for us to be.
It was so encouraging to come to this realization, because I myself have been going through a particularly hard season. I began to understand how the Lord uses the seasons in our own lives to show us His goodness and to remind us that He can make everything beautiful in its own time.
“He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
I was pleasantly comforted and assured by the realization that God, creator of heaven and earth, would use the seasons in our lives, the good and the bad, to capture our hearts, to grow our faith, to revive our spirits, and to draw us into a closer and more intimate relationship with Him.
I smiled as I thought to myself, even in the midst of what seems unbearable in this particular season of my life, that God is doing something beautiful within me.
I began to finally understand that God was making beauty out of ashes.
And just like the dead leaves that fell to the ground, I too, would emerge out of the ashes renewed, purified and rejuvenated.
I looked out my window one more time and marveled at the falling leaves, now pleasantly aware that what was once dead will once again become new.
