We found two sunny, 70° weather days in the beginning of November, but it’s back to 50 with clouds today.
And that’s alright with me.
Among the (non-snow) flurry of changing leaves, fall boots and flannels, I think that we sometimes forget one important thing: not only are the seasons changing, but we are as well.
As we found out with November’s glimpse of summer, what we recieve is not always what we expect.
I opened up a journal from my freshman year today and I read a prayer that was complex in words and nature and I realized that sometimes the boldest prayers are the simplest. My current prayer: God, provide for me.
There’s nothing wrong with specific prayers; no, that is not what I am trying to say. But as the sleepiness of November kicks in, I often cannot fathom what even might be my need. Therefore, I trust the Lord to provide for me.
I never would have guessed that I could ever find myself here, a senior, typing in a fluffy white chair in the living room of Fairbanks Townhouses when I was a freshman living in Kollen Hall.
It’s true, I think. Nothing feels like it’s changing, but one day we wake up and nothing is the same. We have to have the courage to believe that things can be different, that nothing has to stay the same. That courage takes root and grows a tree, that then will become both a place to climb for play and a place of shade for rest.
I glance out the window at the colors of the leaves changing and a small voice in my head says, in a hopeful voice, “they’re dying.”
I realized that the loss of one thing will one day lead to the growth of another. We hear it said many times, but we have to believe it’s true. The winter we sometimes find ourselves in will soon become the spring.
I finalized my final class registration schedule on Wednesday and as I sat with my advisor, I saw only six credits that had not yet met the requirements. Two classes, which left ten flexible credits of which I can do as I choose.
I began to think about all that is to come. I went to Lemonjello’s this morning and got a chocolate cherry cookie and a peach smoothie to pass the time. I sat in Dimnent forty minutes before Chapel began so that I could sit and just be still.
As some of us lose our strength in this season, in the way the trees lose their leaves, we must not forget the importance of what it means to still be growing up.
College-age is old, but we’ll keep getting older. And what a joy it is to continue to learn.
