It is no secret that I love Fall. The colors of the leaves make me extremely happy. Someone showed me a comedian who was talking about people like me who love the Fall leaves. He was making fun of us loving dying leaves. So, yes, I love to watch the dying leaves morph into such a beauty that it takes your breath away.
I love hot apple cider and pumpkin treats. Not a fan of Pumpkin Spice Lattes, but I will take hot chocolate. I have two memories attached to the treats of Fall, both include my Mother. My family traveled to the Smokey Mountains each July when I was a kid. I remember one trip we stopped at a cider stand. I had never had cider before and the first taste of that cold cider on a hot day, I was hooked and in heaven! Hot Chocolate was something that she made LARGE quantities of for crowds, like the ice storm around 1978. The hill we lived on was a solid sheet of ice. People thought they could make it up it. My Mom would send me or my brother out with cups of hot chocolate and the message to come in and use the phone.
I try to plan Fall trips to watch the dying leaves reach the glorious colors. I am not very good at predicting their “peak”. We went to Rhode Island towards the end of September, missed the hint of any leaf changing. So, planned a trip to Vermont. Thanks to James Spann posting pictures of the beauty of the area, missed it by a week. “Snow by the end of the week” the customer service lady informed me. SNOW! There’s a word I dreaded hearing. Stowe, Vermont has already gotten a dusting. Okay, define dusting? The route through the mountains closes mid-October. Excuse me? We are staying off that route. Planned this trip for a year. We do that, you know. We plan our moments in our lives. We set ourselves up for failure too.
There is something so peace about watching snow fall. (Leave out the sound of falling branches and transformers blowing.) So quiet. The beauty of snowflakes floating down is graceful, playful and joyful all at once. The sounds of Fall are like no other season. The leaves falling onto the ground to join the others already there make me think of them dancing. They almost flutter down from their place to their new place. They may be a beautiful yellow or red one they way down, but in a few days on the ground they are brown. Snowflakes do not change like that.
Matthew 6:34 says, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” No matter how much we plan, if we omit God from our plans, they will not bring Him glory. We may succeed, but we are relying on ourselves and not Him. He sustains us better than anything on earth.
My planning lead us up a mountain with Fall colors abound and snow covering that beauty with its own beauty. Finding beauty where others find annoyance, icy roads, being detoured the long road around. Yes, those are annoying, but seeing the beauty in an area that I would have missed. Finding a coffee shop that had a maple latte, or another spot that had a pumpkin whoopie pie, or even another place that had local cheeses; those were treats on top of the beauty of nature. Each day brings new adventures, new challenges, new opportunities, how we greet each of these makes our day “Great” or “Horrible”. Having a horrible day may mean you need a change of scenery or a change of mindset. Take a walk, change the music playing, shut down the voices in your head, change your focus. God can take your best plans and make them even better.
