Letting Things Go

The days are growing shorter as nights steadily become darker and fall showers frequent the calendar. I pull out my wool coats and start to settle into cozy evenings by the fire with a warm beverage in hand. Autumn is finally arriving. There is a chill to the air now that was absent just a couple weeks before. I gaze out my window and notice all the endings outside - all the signs that life is seemingly ending and going into dormant mode: sap slowing, leaves falling, branches growing bare and lifeless, flowers being pulled up from their plots of ground. Green fades into red and then brown and grey as the earth prepares itself for a long winter rest. 

This time of year seems to be so popular as folks flock to coffee shops for all things pumpkin and spice. "Sweater weather," they call it. And yet, it seems peculiar that such a season of transition and apparent dying would be one for celebration and expectation. When most of us shy away from times of ending and uprooting, it's funny that somehow, we see this differently...

Maybe God put it in the human spirit to look forward to change, even if it involves a dying. 

A friend and I are on the phone catching up, reflecting on the journey we've both been on for several years. Both together and apart, we've had our share of suffering: his dreams died and changed, I walked through loss of great magnitude, and we each spent moments questioning the plans of God. Was He still good? Did He care? 

We discuss mutual friends and how their stories have ended differently than ours: when hope still pulled us through and we never turned our backs on God, they appear to have left Him behind entirely. Their massive things have become the end of them in the sense that they have given up on living because of what they endured. They don't know how to move forward. All they can do is pine for a happier time when life was good. Whether in our experiences or theirs, loss visited us all. But how we chose to handle it determined the outcome. By the grace of God, we kept moving when others got stuck. And now, on the other side, we are thankful. Supremely thankful. 

While talking, I look outside and realize that, while the actual season may be autumn, my heart is feeling more like Spring. I've been through my Fall and my Winter and now am seeing the light lengthen and the warmth deepen. The cold is thawing and Love is penetrating into my soul as I begin to feel alive again for the first time in years. Yet... I haven't forgotten (and never will!) what it felt like to be as a tree in autumn, dropping my leaves, going into dormancy and feeling the ice-cold of Winter as hardship took its toll. I felt my heart slow and my whole being go into survival mode. 

And now I'm seeing this truth ever so gradually: all the seasons are necessary and, as with the others, without an Autumn of the soul, where one is asked to let things go and move into resting mode, where one's heart must weather the storms of Winter's rage in order to begin again the cycle of resurrection and newness of life... without that, one is not a whole person. Just like the trees themselves, one is not healthy. If this process does not occur, one cannot grow properly. One cannot become their fully intended self. 

God orders seasons in our lives just as He does the seasons of the world. There are times of want and times of plenty, times of health and times of ill, times of success and times of failure, times of peace and times of struggle, times of ease and times of pain. And with each movement of life, we are shaped and taught. Shall we sincerely resent the very process by which God is forming our inner person? What cause do we have to fight the things that He is actually sending our way to make us better? 

If we fail to drop our leaves and let some things go, we are failing in our designed purpose. A tree knows when to release, and we ought to figure out how to do the same.

As we celebrate the literal seasons, there ought to be a welcoming of these inward ones, as well. The inner Fall that leads to Winter isn't one to be feared but one to be leaned-into. This is the time when God is asking us to let things run their course and to rest our harried selves. To allow Grace to heal and  mend and make us fit to produce good fruit once again. Just as the trees would develop a version of burnout were they never to drop their leaves, so do we if we do not let some stuff we've been holding onto... go. 

Hands curl around a warm mug of tea as I wrap myself in a blanket, put a show on tv, and bless God for a cuddly home on a cool Fall night. Yes... these are the days I need too. The ones of Summer's flurry have passed, and Spring will not be for quite awhile. In my heart, the Spring can keep coming, and I welcome its arrival. But I also practice gratitude for how Autumn and Winter did their part, as well. Without them, I would be missing something valuable.