Let it go...

I have a love-hate relationship with autumn.

While I enjoy the gorgeous colors and the pumpkins and the leaves crunching under my feet and no longer stressing so much about a swimsuit-ready body, I’m always so sad to see my favorite season of summer go.

Everyone is all like, “Pumpkin Spice Lattes!” And I’m like, “Yeah, those are yummy, but…”

As an aside, has Starbucks changed their flavored coffee drinks this season or is it just me? A couple of weeks ago, I went to Starbucks and, with giddy anticipation, ordered my first Pumpkin Spice Latte of the season, even though I enjoyed it a lot, Especially thinking how expensive it is just for a coffee. I can't help but think about how fake is the flavors in it. I'll probably won't get from Starbucks again but It's okay to enjoy it at least once. I know there's tons of Pumpkin flavors at all grocery stores anyway!

Anyway, moving on…

I adore summer. As I’ve said before, I’m a summer girl. Flipflops, the beach, hot days and humid nights… these are a few of my favorite things!

And, every year, when autumn rolls around, I find myself feeling a little sad. Summer, the fun season, is passed. The days get shorter and shorter as fall brings us ever closer to the end of another year, and then, before we know it, the year is finished. Time and seasons march ever onward, and nothing can stay the same.

And, as the leaves fall off the trees, it feels like I’m losing something too. Something that I didn’t know I needed to hold on to until I had to let it go.

There’s a tree-lined street on the way to our home, and, in the autumn, the yellow and orange leaves will dance and float all around as you drive down the street. It’s gorgeous and enchanting and rather fairy-like. But, sometimes, as we drive down the road amid the falling leaves, I feel like saying to their trees, “No, no, no! Wait! You can’t let them fall yet. You need to hang on a little longer. You’re not ready to let go!”

I have a hard time with change. I have a hard time with letting go.

However, like the trees, sometimes, we have to stop hanging on to other stuff as well and just let go. And there’s beauty in this too.

To just let go…

Past hurts, past mistakes, the wouldas, the couldas, and the shouldas, the regrets and, yes, too even some of the good things… we have to let go.

We have to let go to keep living. We have to let go and embrace the change. We have to let go of the past to live fully in the present.

To just finally let it all go and watch it flutter and dance and fall in one last lovely burst of gorgeous color… and even allow ourselves to fully recognize the beauty and the glory of letting go.

Maybe after we let go, we do then stand dormant for a while, waiting and still and silent as winter, because that has to be a part of it too… the waiting, the stillness… But, while we’re waiting, we know, we trust, that spring will come rushing back one day with new blooms and new promises and new mercies and new life.

Letting go, stillness, newness… the glorious circle of life and of our seasons.

And we serve a God who is so wonderful and so amazing that even the trees of the field praise Him in every season. We serve a God who tells the trees when it’s time for them to let go.

And there’s always beauty in letting go.