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15 Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, [a]giving thanks to His name. Hebrews 13:15 NKJV
Splendor
Autumn leaves have always drawn me–from childhood now through age.
Somehow, it seemed, there was a lesson just a whisper away,
something to be discovered before the vibrancy turned to crumpled dust.
Perhaps, it was the vibrancy itself in the face of its death, that is the lesson.
It is the silent proclamation not to mourn the future loss, but to celebrate
the donning of the finest and the best.
We have put on the last and brightest of all we have become,
to be gleaned and savored by those who pass by.
The scarlet autumn is, in part, the still remembered opening green, green buds of first-breath spring.
She is still the strength of summer’s height, still full of life’s lessons caught in the spider’s web of time and spun further still into an enchanting dream with much yet to teach.
The wind is the fiddler man who lays his bow to the violin and spins and weaves the notes into the air, calling to the leaves as they travel and as they fall.
He asks them where they have gone, and when they tell him their secret journeyings, he laughs and says, “You are a gypsy woman, then, for you have traveled far, and you dance barefoot and free upon my notes.”
And the dying leaves rejoice in their final dance of gold and scarlet freedom, clinging to all they have become with joy.
They will live on now,
in those who loved them,
learned, and
–remember.
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Lord, what lesson in your leaves of autumn am I to learn? I, too, am in the autumn of my life. Am I brighter now, more colorful, more vibrant, more giving than in times before? Have I learned to trust You when the wind forces me down? Will I cling to what was or will I float gracefully into the unknown, trusting that You hold the wind and the journey’s end… both… in Your Hands?