I watched the kids from the neighborhood play under the street lamp…unwilling to let go of the last summer night.  The fall wind quietly entered our neighborhood last night and stirred their hair.  The parents stood around talking about work and how we needed to get in, get the kids to bed but, like the kids, we were really holding on to summer.  We knew what was happening. We knew that another season was ending.  That next summer might be different.  It might be the one that our kids no longer want to be kids: running in the street, shooting trucks down front porch stairs, giggling in all of their innocence.

I knew it.  The last summer night of age 3 and 6.

I’ve always done this…cried at the ending of anything.  I dramatize it all…all of life and I don’t want to let it go.  My heart aches for…forever.  I don’t want to say goodbye to Ruthie’s tiny sweet purple sundress ready to be passed on to another 3 year old.

We did finally end it and the kids hung their heads and said goodbye to summer too.

I returned to my chili in the crockpot…prepared for the first day of fall.  I will make plans this morning to go apple-picking.  Noah has already started making a garland of pumpkins.  I couldn’t stop fall from coming around here if I wanted to.  Though I’m sad, I’m ready to move on and I look forward to fall.  But I wonder…what is all that about?  The wrapping up of a season in my heart and it being…sad.

If you’re a mom…take heart and be encouraged if you get sad too…because I believe we should be a bit emotional about our kids moving on.  It is the end of a summer of 3 and 6 and next summer they will be different.  I ministered to them this summer in ways I may never again.  It was sweet.  Sometimes when we give ourselves fully like that, it hurts to let seasons go.  And we do don’t we?  We give ourselves fully because that’s what moms do.

We are all called to love…not just love but love deeply.

“…love one another deeply, from the heart.For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” 1 Peter 22-25

Ruthie picked a few final tiny wild flowers today for me and we put them in a bowl of water.  They are already shriveled up and dead but I am encouraged as I think of God’s enduring living word.  It’s alive and changing even me, calling me and empowering me to continue to love fully through each season.

The seasons will continue to change, we will wither and fall eventually like the flowers but…we are called by this living active enduring word to love deeply from the heart in spite of and in the midst of all of the changes.   That takes faith and a kind God.  For He knows we’re fading and frail and yet…He provides this living active Word and imperishable Holy Spirit living in us to aid us.

His grace to you in this new season…