Autumn Leaves

The last couple of days have been perfect; crisp fall days with the sort of clear sky that makes the trees match the season's bonfires, and frames the vivid yellows and reds with a pristine blue backdrop.  Days that we only get for, at most, two weeks a year, and which are the gifts of a time of transition.

Fall is a season of transition, and, like all good transitions, it’s relentlessly practical.  Trees hold on to their leaves as long as possible and then, poof, let them die as it comes time to prepare for the next season of their lives, where holding on to the leaves could lead to the tree’s destruction.  They allow part of them to die not because they want to, but because they have to. 

Our periods of transition are often just as deeply unpleasant; usually change only happens when we painfully find that the way we've lived until now just isn't going to work anymore.  Sometimes we feel like we're on fire, burning as brightly as the leaves, and at other times it seems as though we're drowning.  

As I go through a season of sometimes quite painful transition, I find great solace in the autumn leaves.  God cares enough about the trees to have designed them to transition at the necessary time and to do as immediately as possible, and he created the trees in such a way that their change is also edifying to everyone around them.  How much more does he love me?