Seasons Change: A Friday Freewrite

The season changing gives us freedom to change too.

The leaves falling from the trees they’ve clung to for so long free us to give up our grip on the life we’ve been holding on to so tightly. The vibrancy of their colors reminds us that beauty comes even in the breakaway, even in the falling down, even in the change. The remnants scattered on sidewalks and streets show us all things must come down and find the ground. Nothing can stay the same forever. No life can go on unmoved as time carries onward. We can’t cling to what we know and think we’ll be safe there forever.

The season changing gives us freedom to change too.

No, we must come down, we must let go. We must trust that even though this looks a lot like the end and a death of something that once was alive and beautiful, this is just the preparing for a whole new life that will come again soon.

The winds are cold and seem to get under our skin as they chill us to the bone and steal our very breath. The warmth of summer is long gone, the heat and the sweat a vague memory our layered bodies can hardly recall, but this cold is good for us.

When it’s cold, we gather together. We gather by fireplaces and on couches and around long tables. When it’s cold, we come inside, we sit down, we stay awhile. We have time to pause, reflect, breathe. When it’s cold, we slow down. Our souls have time to rest.

The winter is coming, and it will be gray and barren and seem lifeless outside our foggy windows. But winter is necessary. The cold gives us and the land a chance to just be, to stop trying so hard, to stop growing new things and focusing so much on activity. Winter says, rest, all who are weary. Winter says, stay, be still, just wait.

We weren’t meant to bloom in every season. We need the seasons of letting go of what we worked hard to grow, trusting in faith that we won’t stay barren forever. We need the seasons of vibrancy, of beauty bursting forth, of great and creative art coming out of us, but we need the seasons of stillness, silence, solitude just the same.

The season changing gives us freedom to change too.