Thankful Thursday ~ Seasons Come and Seasons Go

I am thankful today for the crisp fall air that has finally settled over Arkansas. Relief from the heat and humidity (my hair is also thankful) with air so thick you feel like you can't breathe for more than a few moments outside.

Awwwww....football weather, I like to call it. It is down right cold at night...in the 30's and highs are ranging from 50's - 60's. Now granted...we live in the south and even when the seasons change...they don't always stay that way...we might be back in the 80's or 90's next week! But, let me enjoy it while it last.

It is a time of year when the leaves on the trees are changing colors from a dark, healthy green to yellow, gold and red. The visual beauty of fall. The wind is blowing stronger than usual with a certain chill in the air that only the warm rays of sunshine can warm you. I could sit for hours just watching the leaves sway in the breeze, flip up and then down before being blown off the trees. They swirl through the air, first upward, then falling toward the ground and up again before settling in their final resting place on the still cold ground. I love to listen to the groaning, creaking and crackling of the limbs being moved this way and that way...like a child's arms when they are running around frailing them wildly pretending to be trees. The leaves that I have been watching have fallen onto what was once a plush green carpet of grass, now a sad brown, lonely and dying lawn.

It is the time of year that I love to open my windows and let the cool breezes blow through my house from front to back and side to side. It seems to re-entergize our home and my attitude. It makes me want to get up and get things down...like spring cleaning but in the fall.

The only negative things about fall are the leaves have to be raked and the dead, dry grass gets tracked in the house.

However, as much as I love fall...I don't like winter!

Seasons come and seasons go just like the seasons in our lives...come and go. Just because you are happy or sad at this moment in your life...rest assured...it will not last. There are times when you're on the mountain top shouting about how great life is, how wonderful your family is, how blessed you are and how great God is. But, before you know it, you are down in the valley feeling defeated, lonely, worried, depressed and sometimes, hopeless.

That is just life and the world that we live in...it is full of problems,victories, crimes, joy, sickness and health.

But the Word of God says...

Deuteronomy 3:1-1
(1) Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses.
(2) He sets the time for birth and the time for death,
the time for planting and the time for pulling up,
(3) the time for killing and the time for healing,
the time for tearing down and the time for building.
(4) He sets the time for sorrow and the time for joy,
the time for mourning and the time for dancing,
(5) the time for making love and the time for not making love,
the time for kissing and the time for not kissing.
(6) He sets the time for finding and the time for losing,
the time for saving and the time for throwing away,
(7) he time for tearing and the time for mending,
the time for silence and the time for talk.
(8) He sets the time for love and the time for hate,
the time for war and the time for peace.
(9) What do we gain from all our work? (10)I know the heavy burdens that God has laid on us. (11)He has set the right time for everything. He has given us a desire to know the future, but never gives us the satisfaction of fully understanding what he does. (12) So I realized that all we can do is be happy and do the best we can while we are still alive. (13) All of us should eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for. It is God's gift.
(14) I know that everything God does will last forever. You can't add anything to it or take anything away from it. And one thing God does is to make us stand in awe of him. (15) Whatever happens or can happen has already happened before. God makes the same thing happen again and again. (Message)

I am so thankful today for, not only, our climatic (seasons) changes, which I love but for my spiritual seasons...they are not the end and they will not last forever...ALL IN GOD'S TIME.

Happy Thankful Thursday!!!