Some friends told us that the leaves were already changing in the mountains a couple weeks ago, so we made last minute plans to go into the mountains as a family with my parents to see the leaves changing. It really was breathtaking! Here are some pictures that don’t do our view of God’s creativity justice!
It was a WONDERFUL day together. It was so life giving and relaxing. There was lots of cuddling and giggling. It was a super fun adventure and Beau Jo’s for lunch in Idaho Springs, CO is always a special treat we all enjoy.
The changing leaves is a special celebration in our family because Gramma LOVES it and we all have adopted that love for it. This fall it means something very different to me. See… if we’d had our littlest one on the due date, we wouldn’t have been up in the mountains driving around seeing God’s beauty in that way. We’d have been at home seeing His beauty reflected in a little one’s face instead.
Our family is going through a LOT of change right now and most of the time it feels like walking though deep gray fog instead of gazing up at gloriously changing leaves. We’ve had the death of our baby, career transitions and relationship changes. There are more changes coming very soon. We can’t see them – everything is hazy, but God is busy behind the clouds making everything beautiful and into something even more wonderful than we can imagine… like us walking around our town down the mountain having no idea that such brilliant changes were happening up the mountain.
I got some beautiful insight on this transition and death and letting go from Courtney at WomenLivingWell.org in her post Embracing the Beauty of Letting Go. In her blog she quotes something she read on Instagram:
“The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let the dead things go.”
Read that again. Leaves change color because they are dying, but they are beautiful. Then the leaves die and fall from the tree. It’s the signal that the pure white snow is coming soon to cover everything and give the land a rest.
I love the symbolism of releasing balloons for our littlest one. I wrote about it in Day 13, but I want to show you a picture from Courtney’s blog (it ties in, don’t worry):
I feel like it would be a much cooler picture of the beauty of letting go if instead of the leaves falling to the ground they were lifted up and blown away into the sky like balloons. Can you imagine how gorgeous that would be? Instead of Fall – it could be called RISE and be a beautiful picture of resurrection.
So – Though these changes are hard – not getting the time with our babies on this earth, knowing how fun it would be to bundle up a little one for fall festivities, and all the other hard things – God is using them to make something beautiful, just like those beautifully changing leaves.
My prayer for all of us is that our eyes would rise to the heavens to the One our hope and help comes from in this time of change and sadness. Psalm 121:1-2 says, “I look up to the mountains – does my help come from there? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!” Amen
A prayer you could pray:
Dear Jesus, I don’t like most of these changes. I am sad and miss my little one. Please make something beautiful out of this hard situation and help my eyes RISE to You and Your help when I am sad and discouraged. In Jesus’ name, Amen
Things to Ponder, Journal, and Pray About:
- What is a change that has happened that has been a hard one to adjust to?
- How can you see God using that difficult change for your good (Romans 8:28)?
- Make a plan to help someone going through a hard change or transition.
3 You Can See 