Falling into thankfulness

I often have a hard time letting go of summer. But as I watch the red and orange leaves gently wisp through the air, I feel like I am falling into thankfulness. There is an ease and gentleness this year. I am reminded to be thankful in all things.

As we move from summer to fall, I am learning to trust the transition. Much like the seasons of our lives, opening up to it and even being thankful for it, leads to understanding the purpose.

Sometime back, I wrote a blog entitled, Our Vertical Relationship with God. In it, I compared our relationship with God to the up’s and down’s we experience, “much like the seasons of our lives or the flow of a river.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 NIV reads,

Reflecting on this scripture, I feel as if I am falling into thankfulness. Like a trust fall with no fear because God will always catch me. Moving through the seasons of summer to fall, is like transitioning through seasons of our lives. Ironically, my calendar message reads, “There is a time for everything.”

There is a season for everything.

Just a couple years back, on Labor Day weekend, I remember the temperatures dropping earlier than normal. Usually, we could squeeze at least three, if not four, more weekends at the lake. Not that year. I found myself mad and resisting the next season. I thought by not giving into the change, I somehow could delay it. When this didn’t work, I began begging God to give me one more warm day. Bargaining for one last boat ride of the season. I even had a little temper-tantrum in the privacy of my own mind. All my efforts did not stop summer from ending early that year.

Undetermined by our own efforts, our lives move through seasons as well. Looking back over my life, I see times of plenty and times of lack. Seasons of sickness and loss often followed by times of health, peace and thanksgiving. Sometimes, I have been forced to let go of things, only to realize the releasing made room for new and unexpected things. This opens the door to falling into thankfulness.

With every change, we have a choice. We can resist or we can embrace. We can grumble or be grateful.

With every change, we have a choice. 

Parker Palmer says, in his book, Let Your Life Speak,

“Autumn is a season of great beauty, but it is also a season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summer’s abundance decays toward winter’s death… In my own experience of autumn, I am rarely aware that seeds are being planted… But as I explore autumn’s paradox of dying and seeding, I feel the power of metaphor. In the autumnal events of my own experience, I am easily fixated on surface appearances — on the decline of meaning, the decay of relationships, the death of a work. And yet if I look more deeply, I may see the myriad possibilities being planted to bear fruit in some season.”

“There is a right time for everything.” -The Living Bible

There is not just a time for everything but there is a RIGHT time for everything. We think we know best, but we do not. Only God knows. These are the times we trust fall into God’s goodness and mercy, knowing He will always catch us.

Looking back, often allows us to see seeds that were planted during the difficult times of our lives. Seeds we could never have noticed in the midst of it all. Nonetheless, they are there. Giving depth, meaning, and purpose to those times.

Proverbs 16 says,