gold leaves on the ground {grace words wednesday}

so here we are, almost a week into this month named november.

leaves falling quickly from their trees.
temperatures dropping fast.
and the sky sliding into that winter shade of grey.

you know the season -- the days when it seems all color fades, everything mutes, and life takes on the appropriate tone for winter's imminent hush.

and november just makes it easy for our spirit to fall and fade, to mute and to hush a tiny bit too, right?

just last week, the tree outside my window blazed in pure gold ... and today it seems only a few hardy leaves hang on for dear life.

another one falls ...

bare brown left behind with the background of a metal sky. days closing up shop early. by dinner it's dark. squirrels scurry around in their cold-weather business: gathering. digging. burying.

we've pulled out fleece and hats and, even this weekend, tried on the kids' snow boots. (sigh).

we are preparing.

this month reminds me of everything tucking in, hunkering down, storing up -- readying for what's coming. in minnesota, my friends call it "winterizing." that wasn't a word we tossed around much in the south. but with one minnesota winter now under our belt -- i understand this winterizing. i understand winter. and i know what's coming. oh good grief, i know....

the trees empty.
more gold on the ground ...

and i can feel that small seed of disappointment start to take root deep inside. how fast the warm days of summer sun are gone ...  how brief the heat --- have i mentioned i live in minnesota?

our winter will stretch six, maybe even seven months, across the year. and what am i supposed to do with that? how am i supposed to begin this november in a spirit of thankfulness when i'm facing a land which will very soon feel empty ... turn frozen.

what are we supposed to do with a season which seems to be all about shutting down? staying in? closing up? emptying out?

funny that this is the month for thanksgiving. a part of me wonders why we don't celebrate this holiday in july. why don't we do our great giving of thanks when we are dancing along the shoreline barefoot and fancy free? and warm ... and tan ... and easy.

wouldn't we be more prone to praise under a perfect summer sun?

wouldn't we have more thanks to give with our toes dangling in a lake somewhere?

we could have ice cream cones and ripe slices of watermelon and boat rides  ... fireworks and flags under the bright blue of a july sky. i could give an awful lot of thanks for those summer things. those sweet things.

instead, thanksgiving comes when color fades and the leaves fall and all things become bare.

but ...

is it possible to suggest today that this is the perfect month for praise? when life feels dismal and bleak and just plain blah ... isn't this exactly the time when we should dig deep and look hard at what we have ... at what we hold. even in november.

i know it doesn't seem natural.

perhaps your life feels a lot like a tree in november. things falling off. every day more. dreams and plans falling apart. maybe right now your future feels kind of dim. you're discouraged. possibly even walking a line of despair. you see nothing but a long winter out ahead and you're not sure how you'll do it. handle it. endure it.

maybe it's not the everything, but maybe it's that one thing. that one hard thing. that one piece of your future which seems to be falling apart ... on it's way to numb and frozen.

i don't know what it is, but i know we've all got some bare places.

and strange as it might sound, the one thing i know to do in the november kind of days is to give thanks. someone else might tell you ..."it's okay ... go ahead and hurt ... be mad ... you deserve to be angry ... life stinks ... it's not fair!"  but what if instead of wallowing in that dark place, you begin to give thanks? what if even as the trees lose their leaves and you lose your dreams ... what if even then and there you begin to say those two little words: thank you.

i know it seems contrary to everything our world wants us to believe.

but guess what? --- Jesus is contrary to everything our world wants us to believe.

and, trust me, i know it sometimes feels good to just cross our arms, stomp our foot and become bitter. some disappointments feel too large. some days feel too heavy. some things just too hard. and instead of raising holy arms in thanksgiving we want to hunker down with arms crossed in the thanks for nothing.

i get it.

i've felt that way too.

but if you've lived in this bitter, thankless place, you know it doesn't do anything good. it can't heal. it can't help. it can only make us hurt more.

a couple of blog posts ago, i wrote:

"giving thanks doesn't always change our circumstances, but it changes us."

it does. somehow, that works. when we open our hands to offer up praise, our hearts open up a little bit too. there's some crazy connection. don't take my word for it, go try it. one simply cannot express gratitude and grumbling at the same time. it's one or it's the other. and i'm suggesting today that we have a choice.

even in this first week of november.

even when things fall off or life falls apart.

even when the world tells us we are allowed to be mad ... angry ... hurt ...hardened ... hateful.

i'm writing today to tell you --- you have a choice. don't go for the world's way. it leads only to further destruction. go for God's way and give thanks. give thanks and get life.

the leaves will continue to fall ... and the color will, of course, fade. but you will endure in the warmth of Christ's love when you lift up your arms and open your heart.

The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies;

but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and,

as the magnet finds the iron,

so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!

Henry Ward Beecher

and that's why november is the perfect month for thanksgiving.
and that's why hardship is the perfect time for thanksgiving.
and that's why pain is the perfect chance for thanksgiving.

another gold leaf falls ...

and we (choose to} give thanks.

no matter what happens, always be thankful, 

for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus. ~ 1 thessalonians 5:18

my version of "winterizing!"  =)

{grace words: fall * praise * thanksgiving * november}

Jesus, you know the bare spots in my life. you see the empty places -- the parts hurting and hard.  Father, would you help me to choose thanks and fill these holes with your praise? i want to see you even in the falling apart places of life -- especially in those places. Jesus help us to give thanks for all of it ... everything ... even the things which we don't understand or don't like. fill our days with your praise and fill our hearts with your presence. a-men

don't forget to check out BECKY CRENSHAW'S {grace-words} over at THE WORD OF GOD AND A CUP OF JOE. becky's in the middle of a marriage series this month -- maybe another "november-ish" kind of thing in our lives? her series is called "more than fine." her words on marriage are filled with truth, honesty and encouragement!  

fallen beauty

i know the goal is perfect green.  trim and tidy and not a twig in sight.  i see suburban lawns striving serious toward this fall ideal.   come autumn, and everyone is out -- zealously, religiously, hurriedly blowing leaves into oblivion.  rakes lean heavy on oak trees and piles loom high in backyards and everyone races against weather to rid their yards of what has fallen. what has come.  and the neighbors talk and watch anxiously across fences and flowerbeds,  wondering when mr. smith is going to tackle his own half acre or so -- his responsibility.  worried the neglected nature might blow into their own tightly-manicured frontscapes.  and i feel a bit rebellious in my blood.  i feel like a woman who wants to run to these neat and shipshape neighbors and take the wooden rakes from their gripping fingers and implore them to stop. "stop raking already, will you!" can you just imagine? (mother of five finally snaps).

as a little girl, i could never fathom why everyone was so soul-bent on whisking away what seemed so beautiful.  what nature had released.  what God had designed.  trees parting with the fire color of their fine dress.  yellow and red and orange jewels spread across empty, lonesome lawns.  it made me sad to see such beauty hurriedly shoved into black garbage bags and dragged curbside --like some nasty kind of business.  like someone might point the accusing finger of yard negligence.  like it might sully the image of good neighbor.  as a child,  i thought the fallen leaves looked like gems scattered across our small square of city lawn.    didn't my neighbors or my own dad see what i saw?  i think not.  maybe it was because they knew what i didn't --ignore the leaves and see the damage and mess come spring. they were reasonable and responsible and adult in their thinking. and so they raced on with rakes. and when the city lawn was traded for a suburban sized lawn, the rake was traded in too and the leaf blower was added to our garage arsenal.  though my father and the other men on the block saw a saturday morning chore,  my child-eyes watched a patchwork blanket of beauty descend.


but as life would have it, i grew up and away from that little girl in ohio.   i too, am all adult now.  i am a homeowner.  a yard worker.  i'd even like to think myself reasonable and responsible.   i understand better the race against weather and time.   but still...still...s t i l l  i am slow to this particular task and kind of blue when i watch my husband and boys begin the great leaf tackle.  they go at it weekend after weekend.   it is a family affair -- all seven of us doing something. when we chose this heavily treed lot, we never thought much about leaf removal.  i have to say though, it does cross our minds on saturdays in november.


  i know there are some who watch leaves fall and see only mess.  they see work.  they see a backache and calloused hands at the end of a long day in the yard.  i know that.  and as i grown woman, i get it.  i get all the talk about it and all the time spent on it.  but i still feel that child-longing inside.  i still drive through my neighborhood or out on a wooded road and see the sparkle of jewels scattered in blown beauty.  i still, occasionally, sit on the red adirondack chair in my backyard and delight in the fallen color at my feet. quiet and hushed and golden, if only for a moment.  i don't want to lose this entirely. sometimes i fear i might.  it is about perspective.


my close friends tease me about owning my own leaf blower.  my husband has a big gasoline guzzling kind of thing he uses,  but i wanted something cleaner, nicer, neater.  so off to home depot i went one day, a few years back, and purchased my own light weight, electric blower.  have i mentioned it is mine?  yes, mine.  so you see, i have joined the ranks.  i am not so romantically wired that i am willing to throw my body onto a leaf pile and protest its removal.  i contribute.  i blow leaves.  i even burn them.  thankfully we have woods behind our house and so the leaves go backwards, not curbside.   i'd be absolutely remiss to allow you to think i am a leaf-hugger. i do understand why they must go. i am no longer that little girl gazing out her bedroom window pretending her yard is a treasure trove of fall finery.  i know full well these golden leaves will turn to unsightly brown mush with winter's weight upon them. and so i, too, plug in my neat and nice little leaf blower and blow leaves as far as my series of extension cords allow.


i guess what i'm writing about today is perspective.  it is about taking the time to see things not just as messy, but as marvelous. not just as work-heavy, but as wonder-full.  it is about looking with eyes which see past tidy, and notice treasure.  perhaps i am just challenging you to take a walk in the park, on your street, in your yard and pick up something golden or red or orange and see it.  really see it.  and know that even its very falling is miraculous.  how did God think of that?  not too many years ago, one of my sons said to me, how did God ever come up with the idea to make the trees change colors? i thought that a pretty astute observation for a little guy and i am so glad he noticed before they were all blown away.