I love the autumn.

Crisp. Cool. Color. Contrast.

Trees which months ago bore flowers now offer up their leaves as a gift to the coming winter.

I watched this morning as the wind picked up in the cul-de-sac my house sits atop. As it blew, the wind gathered the orange and red and yellow leaves from the trees which guard my street. They came willingly, the leaves.

They didn’t as much fall as submit themselves to the pattern of the wind.

We cannot see the wind, but we can see its intent when we watch the dancing of the leaves.

Swirling, up and down, circles and quick jolts to the side. The dance lasted maybe 30 seconds as the leaves allowed the wind to make them beautiful in the open air, away from their tree, but before they found their place of rest on the concrete.

How I want to dance like the leaves.

When I feel the wind blowing, I tend to only think of its power – but what of its beauty? What twists and turns in my life could become a beautiful dance as I travel the road to my surrender?

The deconstruction of the fall is what we find so beautiful and captivating. It is the drying and dying of the leaves that draws us in to watch their journey to the ground. Even there, on the ground, we gasp at the beauty of the gathering surrender. Have you ever seen the joy on the face of a child playing in fall leaves? Have you experienced that joy yourself?

Could my gathering surrender draw in others to see the beauty in my story?

We try so hard to keep all the facets of who we are alive, working hard to survive the storm, but what if some things were meant to submit to the wind and dance toward surrender?

What if some parts of who we are were meant to become beautiful beacons within the moments they are dying?

There are parts of me which hold no beauty in their life. There are parts of me I hold on to that God desperately wants me to surrender to make room for the new growth He is planning for the Spring.

I don’t want to be a tree that holds on to dead leaves long after they have withered. I want to see the beauty in the deconstruction of who I am to make room for the new things. I want to wait with expectant anticipation on the wind – ready to let go of the turning leaves so they can dance their way to the surrender I am being called toward.

Letting the beauty of that dance draw those in around me who are being called to surrender too . . . I long to see the joy on the faces of those, myself included, who get to experience the peace and freedom that comes from the rest found in that place.

The place of my continued, seasonal, trust-filled surrender.

“How frail is humanity!
How short is life, how full of trouble!
We blossom like a flower and then wither.
Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.”
Job 14:1-2 (NLT)

“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.”  John 12:24 (NLT)