I heard a song lyric that said: “as our days fly away” – and the fall season makes you feel that. It’s going to be cooler and cooler, frost will come soon especially up here in the north. It’s time to be mourning summer and embracing the season that we are entering. Remember, also, that spring is just around the corner.

I’m appreciating the fall now, the gardens are full of hearty crops like squash, cabbages, brussel sprouts, pumpkins…And I’m fully embracing fall colors now too, and the harvest season of hope and hunkering down. We harvest what others have labored for.

It’s joy in the color of summer simmer in the flowers refusing to fade, the taste and color of sweet grapes, and deepness of red in the weathered storage barn. Fall here is matched with crisp temps, as crisp as the dried leaves crunch under your feet. 

A pumpkin at a farm stand spoke to me and I GOT IT. It was BIG, shiny, warted-well, and true pumpkin orange. Only $5 and well worth a treat to me myself, because when you KNOW YOUR pumpkin, you KNOW it!!! 

Pick a pleasing pumpkin in this season of life, you might tire of it in 2 months, but now it’s perfect! 

I found an old photo of me with a carved pumpkin, like from 45 years ago, wow, and I can understand in my life, then and now,  how PLEASING it must have been to have that pumpkin… The fall season as a kid was full of fun, and we need to embrace those moments now. I can understand those song lyrics of days and lives flying away.

So how we embrace today does matter, whether we are 8, 58, or 88. 

I found the last 2 days of the Jesus Always book devotions very important in my life, now and always, for me and for all of us.

Be less distracted by the troubles in the world and more attracted to God. God asks us to focus on Him, be preoccupied with Him and recieve Him. Jesus said: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart – and with all your soul – and with all your mind – and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39). And to break free from self absorption by learning to recieve God’s love and loving God back… Self absorption might make us miss the joy God wants to show us. And surely we would miss the oppotunities to share God’s love with others. Self absorption also makes life’s stings more painful. It is better to forget ahead towards God’s love and leading than take in opinion of others on our lives. Be knowing we are God’s child, not stucj in a chokehold of chiding that the world gives. We work our lives for Him, not others.

I remember that’s Jesus says to His disciples, the harvest is upon us, but there are not enough workers to gather what others labored for. Meaning the disciples are to share the good news of forgiveness and mercy and love, and from this love, the worship of God in spirit and truth, the news of salvation will spread.

Listen to God in THIS season. Plant, sow, harvest.

Embrace the season we are in, and pray to have peace in it. Pray to put aside pressures to conform to the world and instead pick up on the clues of God’s bounty. He will carry us through, so carry God in your day, love Him with all heart mind and soul…

Amen