when the leaves let go.

every year, fall seems to preach the same sermon:

let go.

the trees release what they have carried. leaves that were once green + full of life change color, loosen their grip + eventually fall to the ground. and somehow, we look at all of that letting go and call it beautiful.

i've been thinking about that lately.

because change can be hard for us. we like to know what comes next. we hold tightly to what feels familiar + safe + comfortable. we want to know that if we release one thing, there will be something waiting to take its place + fill that empty space.

but fall doesn't work that way.

the trees let go before anything new appears. there is a barrenness between what was + what will be. and maybe that's part of the invitation:

to trust that letting go isn't always loss. sometimes it's making room. the “in between” is the very space where God prepares us for the beauty that is still yet to come.

the letting go is the making room for God to do something new. the letting go is the making room to receive instead of grasp. the letting go is the making room to enter the next season with open hands instead of clenched fists. because while everything around us changes, He does not.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
— Hebrews 13:8

our circumstances change. relationships change. our bodies change. plans change. seasons begin + end.

and God remains.

He is our sturdiness when everything feels uncertain. our shelter when the landscape around us looks different than it did before. our steady ground beneath every changing season.

and fall gives us another beautiful reminder of this in the harvest. before there was anything to gather, there was a seed — something small was placed into dark soil + for a while, there was absolutely nothing to see.

growth occurs long before there is any evidence of it.

how often do we mistake nothing visible for nothing happening?

——————

there are prayers we've prayed that haven't been answered yet. seeds God has planted that haven't broken through the soil. places where He has asked us to remain faithful without giving us any tangible evidence of what He is doing.

maybe…just maybe… the invitation, then, is simply to keep tending.

to practice patience.

to persevere.

to hope.

to trust that the God who brings forth the harvest is still at work even + especially when all we can see is dirt.

fall reminds us that there is a time to gather + a time to release. a time to see the fruit + a time to trust what is still hidden. and through every one of those seasons, God remains the same.

so perhaps we don't have to be quite so afraid of change. we can loosen our grip + choose to open our hands. we can let go of what He is asking us to release with great trust + continue tending to what He has asked us to cultivate – one day at a time.

because our security was never meant to come from everything around us staying the same.

our security is in the One who does.