I love the changing seasons – each has its own beauty. But this time of year, when the air is getting crisp and the leaves are changing colors – there is something so fantabulous about looking at the trees along the Mississippi River in all their colorful fall glory. Orange, yellow, red, and shades in between. God’s creativity certainly knows no bounds! I suppose if I had to choose, I’d say that fall is my favorite season …. maybe. If you ask me in a different season, I might give you a different answer.
While crossing the river on my way home, my mind drifted from nature’s seasons to the seasons of life, and how nature could be a symbol of the life. Spring is a time of beginning – birth. Summer is the growing season – youth. Fall is the harvest – adulthood. Winter is the dormant season, when everything is resting – late life, seniors. I wonder if while God was creating the universe He had this same thought?
My thoughts kept returning to fall and the thought that the change of colors from the green of youth to the vibrancy of aging was a fantastic way to think about life at my age. My hair is highlighted with silver strands, my skin is less resilient, my face is beginning to show little lines around my eyes, my strength is not what it once was. I am certainly in the fall season of life.
If we listen to the advertisers, aging, or letting it show, is a bad thing. We need to wash away the gray and use one cream or another to puff away the wrinkles. Take this pill or that, eat this food or the other. We are encouraged to fight the natural aging process with every effort we can muster. But why? What are we afraid of?
As I considered this, I kept hearing “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2) Society has taught us that it’s all about us. All about me. The individual is more important than the group. Appearances more praised than character. It seems no one is satisfied with themselves or where they are in life. Everyone is looking for more and more and more.
We were not created for our own purposes, we were created to worship and walk with God. He created within us the freedom to make choices, and ever since Adam and Eve chose disobedience we have been wandering about separated from God, in exile from paradise. I believe this is why we are so afraid of aging and death. Instinctively we know that something is missing, and so we spend our lives searching for something to fill that void and no matter what we try, it can never replace a relationship with God.
Accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior has changed so many things in my life, and it has changed my perspective entirely. I am no longer searching for something to make me feel whole. Jesus has filled that void, and my focus is no longer on the here and now, but on the future and God’s will for my life.
I want this for you too. I want you to share in the joy and peace that only Jesus can give – He is the only way to reunion with God in heaven. A relationship with God, and belief and faith in Jesus Christ will fill that void you feel. The scattered pieces of life will begin to fall in place. When you can rest in the knowledge that your sins have been forgiven everything changes! Your desires, your hopes, your dreams, your future …. everything becomes focused on God’s will for your life.
Yes, I am in the fall season of life. And you know what? I love those silver highlights and little wrinkles around my eyes. I embrace these changes and know that they are just part of the natural order of things. Everything changes, and eventually everything dies and returns to the dust from which it was made. I accept this and am looking forward to whatever God brings tomorrow – no matter what that might be.
From Suffering to Praise 