Today as I look out my window on this breezy fall day, I am feeling very connected to the beauty of creation. I live in a beautiful location. My house is surrounded by trees and at this time of year, the leaves are all different shades of red, orange, green and yellow. When the sunlight hits them, which does happen occasionally in Western PA, they just glow with brilliance. The leaves on the trees are stunning. And, then, something magical happens when the wind blows. The leaves come soaring to the ground. Some of them spin in little circles with the stem down and seem to just dive to the earth. Others actually tumble end over end until they slowly float to the earth. Some start falling one direction and then the wind picks them up and carries them a different direction and then sometimes just before they hit the ground, it lifts them once again for a little glide across the yard. All these leaves are on different journeys, and they travel at different speeds and in different ways. They really remind me of life and its journey. Though all the leaves can represent that journey, I realized today that I identified with a particular one. A medium sized yellow maple leaf halfway up a tree that is smaller than its Oak neighbor. This little leaf on this smaller tree refuses to let go. As I’ve watched hundreds, possibly thousands of leaves make their journey from limb to lawn, this stubborn Maple leaf clings on by a thread. The wind is whipping it in every direction, and I marvel at its strength to hold on. It reminds me of a child’s wiggly loose tooth that refuses to give up and fall out. This leaf is hanging on. For what? Eventually, we all know it will let go and join the rest of the leaves in the yard, but until it does, it is taking a royal beating in an attempt to hang on.
I am like that Maple leaf many times. I hang on to things way longer than I should. I honestly know that if I would just let go, I would softly, beautifully float to new and better things, but I refuse and I hang on to what I know. I stay in the place I have been for a long time. I refuse to let go and declare a new season. Just as I shake my head and wonder about that leaf and its motives, I shake my head and wonder about myself. As I have spent some time this afternoon thinking, dreaming and watching the fall leaves tumble, I think I am excited for the day I do let go. The day I do drift peacefully into the next exciting season. I mean, what are my options? I certainly don’t want to be that lone brown leaf that we’ve all seen during winter hanging on to the tree being pelted by snow and sleet. No. That is not how I am going to go into the next season, and I hope you don’t either. Let Go!
18 But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I’m going to do! 19 For I’m going to do a brand-new thing. See, I have already begun! Don’t you see it? I will make a road through the wilderness of the world for my people to go home and create rivers for them in the desert! – Isaiah 43:18 & 19 The Living Bible
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