I’m amazed every year when Fall rolls around. It has always been my favorite season, even before I moved to a part of the country that actually had trees that changed colors. I love that first cool evening when you can finally pull out a sweater, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and of course, the changing colors.
The year after I graduated from college, I moved to Chicago to start seminary and to work for a non-profit. One day my roommate and I were driving somewhere, and as we merged on to the interstate, I literally started squealing. I think I almost made her wreck, I startled her so much.
I was in such awe of all the bright reds, oranges, and yellows that lined the highway. I had never seen anything like it. For my roommate, who had grown up in Jersey, this was nothing new or exciting. It was just…Fall.
I remember we got into a conversation about the season of Fall, about how the reason the trees are producing such brightly colored leaves is because they are dying.
It almost seems like an oxymoron, beauty in dying.
Over the years, I’ve continued to ponder this as day after day it seems I am always dying to something—myself, my relationships, my pride, my anger, my selfishness, my need to control—all so that Christ can bring about something beautiful and whole and alive inside me.
As this Fall season approaches I find myself in another dark season.
My depression and anxiety has skyrocketed at times. As I was discussing this with a friend the other day, the conversation turned to death. Sometimes life becomes so hazy, we miss out on the bright colors that Christ puts in our path each day.
We forget that there is purpose in dying.
Each Spring, we watch as death is transformed into life. Everything that is brown and grey begins to turn into bright greens. It’s miraculous when you think about it.
If God chooses to do this in nature each year, why in the world would he not want to bring forth life in us, His sons and daughters?
I am reminded and reassured that those things I don’t really want to die to—but know I need to die to—have purpose. And that purpose far outweighs the pain I may be experiencing right now in the transition. I just have to wait and trust in the Lord’s goodness and sovereignty to get me to the other side, to see that new life spring up inside me.
