Autumn Ponderings

Oh how I would love a pumpkin cheesecake! But Alas, I do not have enough cream cheese; primarily because I used half of it last night to make a different dessert.

Today the trees are bare. The harshness of the storm yesterday stripped them of all the autumn glory. There’s something peaceful in the changing seasons. I can’t help but start to get excited for winter and Christmas and the snow. I’ve missed it.

I’ve been living as though my life were on hold. Waiting to start. Frozen in time. Yet it never left me. I’ve aged even though I’ve felt lost in a dream. A nightmare, more like it. One of the ones that haunts you, even when you’re awake.

I’m free now. Free from the weight that held me down. Just like the leaves. They wonder and drift away, no longer in the grip of the tree. They’re free to explore and dream.

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The leaves, of course, fade away and die. It’s not like that for me. For I am like a seed, perhaps dried and seemingly dead for a season, but a new one is coming. It might take some time for this frozen heart to yield to life, but it will grow again. The love, the possibilities, the future. Held safely in the hands that guide me, even though the storms may rage around me.

There’s so much hope today. I don’t know what it is exactly. Maybe it’s the playful leaves, the blue sky, the lighter breeze. There’s a light that fills us all, and I’m so thankful that, for this time, that light will shine on me.

Funny, I hate the idea of being in the spotlight. Absolutely hate it. It’s not like that though, this is different. It isn’t about me, it’s about something greater than me.

I was washing a fishbowl out this morning, thinking out lovely it would be for a trifle. I wonder how many things we could be used for that don’t fit the social norms. The standards and the box everyone will try to put us in.

Like that fishbowl, we have so many different things we have the ability to be, and to do well at. Are we so limited in our own thinking that we allow ourselves to be defined by what others around us tell us we’re designed for. Who are they to say?

Maybe we have more purpose than this. Maybe we’re meant for so much more than just holding the weight of the world, stuck in our own boring and mundane lives. Maybe we were meant to brighten someone’s day, to help them out in their time of need.

Maybe it isn’t about labels and stigmas, maybe it’s about the potential for this outer shell, or the content inside. That seed, the real us, the inner being that only we can see. Maybe we need to allow that part to grow.

It reminds me of a recent episode of Doctor Who, “Kill The Moon.” I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it, but maybe we just need a chance to live.

I don’t want to throw away my potential because I’m scared, have gone through a difficult season in life, or because someone else tells me the potential isn’t there… That I’m designed for a different purpose than the one I know God has placed inside me.

I want to live this life to my full potential, and I hope that you will too.