Changes. Autumn means things dying so others can live. I don't like the dying part, even when it isn't really dying, just falling off and going dormant. It seems fall always brings these difficult changes, especially in relationships. And it makes me miss people so much...like Kim.

I really want to just increase in my desire for the Lord right now, and not get distracted by the changes going on in and around me. I love that the Lord has created me to love others, but I also don't want it to decrease my attentiveness to His heart, and grafting ours together. Still, there are always those seasons where you feel friendships changing, maybe permanently, maybe just for a time. Some moving further away, some just staying further away. Summer is a blast because you get to spend so much time together, no school, no homework. Then fall comes, it grows colder and the days shorter, and the responsibilities longer.

At the same time, fall is a time for contemplating and measuring, and can be one of drawing in to the Lord. I've been asking this week how mature I really am. I know with that question, there will need to come even more change, more deaths, and later, more life. :) It is a scary question to ask, especially when you truly desire an answer. How mature am I? How can I grow in maturity? What do others see?

Even in the quiet of fall there is always the promise of next Spring, when the whispered thoughts and exchanges of the autumn and winter suddenly burst through the ground and reveal what has been secretly amassing strength through the cold months. There is even now in my Spirit these unnamed expectations and desires being stirred. It is like the fog is there, but I can sense something great in it, and though I don't want to let myself call it out by name...I know it's near, and it's beautiful, and therefore I can accept the changes I feel shifting the ground around me.

"The Lord is with you mighty warrior. So rise...Spread your wings and fly. The four winds of heaven are blowing your direction, so fly." -Rick Pino