It Isn’t Time

Suddenly the leaves are tinting rust, orange, burgundy. It isn’t time, I think. It’s too early. Some of them have already detached from branches and floated to the ground, settled their crinkled leaves along the grass. Perhaps the tress are confused, with all the up and down weather. They cannot be shedding their skin so soon. There is still so much of their beauty to behold, the trusted presence of lush and luminous green each day.

It isn’t time. It’s too early.

Maybe I do not want them to turn, because it means a turn into a season of shorter days, colder temperatures, and impossibly long stretches without the sun. Wisconsin winters run cold and persistent, and the visions of a hard last winter for me mentally and emotionally gather like encroaching clouds. Though I am not in charge, I will the trees to reverse course and keep themselves green.

Maybe I am not ready. Maybe I am still afraid of what is to come.

Hard seasons bring us headfirst into what we want to avoid. Trouble. Pain. Fear. Loneliness. It doesn’t feel good. And we don’t want the current beauty of what’s before us to fade.

But like the leaves, seasons shift, always working toward regeneration.

Growing slow shapes us, especially in the unseen places.

Layers of healing come in seasons. God’s timing is perfect and purposeful, even when our leaves seem to shrivel and fall to the ground. There is beauty in becoming, in trusting the process, in trusting the God who comes close.

It’s waiting and watering and holding out the offerings of our heart to place them in His hands. Nothing is too early. Nothing is too late.

Maybe we aren’t ready. But maybe we are. Maybe we can go into these seasons with grace. We are not alone. We are seen. We are held. The God of seasons is doing His thing. Nothing in the waiting and shifting is wasted. We are preparing for what is to come.