running towards, embracing, enjoying... change.

It's a new season.  My favorite season.  Autumn.  Fall.  Cinnamon candles. Crunchy leaves.  Falling waterglobe-like leaves.  Acorns and pecans scattered across the ground.  Hot tea.  Windows open.  A blessed change in temperature from our very long humid and hot summers.  Long cool walks.  Sweaters and scarves.  Thanksgiving.

It's a new season.  I don't know all what it will hold.  I know some of what it will hold.  A new house out on blessed acreage with huge gorgeous rambling oak trees.  Quiet private morning walks. Longer drives "into town" which will provide good thinking time.  Stars not dimmed by city lights.  New opportunities.  New ideas.  New discoveries.  New needs, which are marvelous opportunities to see God act. 


Spring and summer of this year found me for the most part in an exhausted state of mind, resisting change, desperately clinging on to what was familiar and the plans I'd had.  Emotionally drained from too many rugs slipped out from under me.  But, I prayed.  I stood on promises from God's word.

"If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.  He that believes on Me as the scripture has said, out of  his heart shall flow rivers of living water."  ~Jn. 7:37-38

"Have you not known?  Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth,
neither faints, nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable.
He give power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
(~Is. 40:28-31, italics mine)

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters,
He restores me soul;
He leads me in the path of righteousness for His name's sake.
(~Ps. 23:1-4, italics mine)

My soul was restored.  My joy was returned.  My hope for the future firmly based on the track record of the past:  God's faithfulness.

Now, I am choosing to embrace change.  New seasons.  New places.  New joys and new sorrows.  New delights and new inconveniences.

And, I'm cutting my hair.  Yes, not just a trim, but a totally new cut.  Not to over-spiritualize a haircut, but there is something to be said for taking physical steps to symbolize some deeper matter of the heart- something invisible, yet more real than what we can see.   We see examples of that in the Bible so many times- God asking His people to do something symbolic to represent the spiritual.  This is my step towards embracing change and the new adventures on the horizon.

I don't want to make familiarity an idol.  Ever.  I don't want to be bound by fear.  Ever.  And I don't have to be. Because He can be trusted to provide for and complete what He calls us to do. 

Faithful is He who calls me, who also will do it.  (~ 1 Thes. 5:24)

Here's to embracing new seasons, new places, new adventures, new levels with the Jesus. 

...and just maybe.... even a new hairstyle.  :)