Beauty

I love fall. I mean, I. Love. Fall. As a Northwesterner my entire life, I actually get excited for the signs that autumn is here: Rain. Sweaters. Fires. Boots. Hot coffee. College football. And ohhh, those leaves. I get jazzed just to drive around and attempt to count all the different colors I see as the trees start changing...and dieing.

Last year, the Lord used my love for fall as a way to show me my love for the alluring beauty of my sin. It was breaking experience in my heart as He revealed how much sin dressed up in the appearance of "beauty" still appealed to me. He taught me that it's just a moment of pleasure, but in the end, it quickly leads to death. It was a humbling lesson, but it kind of wrecked my feeling for my favorite season.

This fall though, in God's goodness and kindness, He has redeemed this time of year for me. Allow me to explain...

You see, since moving to Seattle, we have been blessed with an amazing community around us. People with the desire to move towards the Lord and seek Him. People that serve well, love well, support well, and enjoy life well. I've also seen them suffer well as God has allowed me to witness the beauty of earthly death with them.
It's been painful to watch them on this path. To see moms and dads miscarry yet another child. To watch two dear couples say goodbye to parents that went Home after battling brain tumors. And now, walking with our close friends and neighbors as all medical odds are against their little boy surviving this pregnancy, which would be the second miscarriage this year. And yet, as crazy as this sounds, it's been so beautiful! Or more accurately, beautifully challenging. I have witnessed our community visit with a meal, wake up in the middle of the night to be in prayer, babysit on a moment's notice, or just sit and cry and pray and cry some more. I have seen faith being birthed and trust being put in the Father for the first time. And faith grow stronger as the situation has gone from green to yellow to orange to red...to fallen. It's been tough chapter to say the least. But it's also been so full of gorgeous colors of joy, peace, hope, and reasons to rejoice, just like these breathtaking autumn days.
To God's Glory, He has giving me this beautiful fall here in the Northwest as a gift to stand in awe of our Creator. Of His detailed and wonderful design in all things. Psalm 24:1-2 says, "The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters." As I watch how truly fragile life here is, I am seeing Him as Creator and Protector in new ways.

And am so dang excited to get Home to see and meet the saints that have gone before me!