This month is always significant for our family. We pack a lot of emotion and celebration into October. And typically I can’t wait to add to the frenzy with a visit to a farm for a hayride, painted pumpkins, fall-themed birthday parties, and a fall scene on the front porch. But this year our pace and our place is different, and I’m simply hoping autumn can point me back to the surface after a season of overwhelm and a long absence from this space. I have missed writing. And I’ve missed thinking. Maybe mostly, I have missed feeling settled enough to connect with people outside my immediate family.
After a brief stay in an AirBnB, followed by four months in a rental, we scrapped all of our original plans and have moved into an older house across town near my brother and sister-in-law. Not only have we moved our bodies and our belongings into this house. We’ve also moved my husband’s pet supplement business into a “workshop” here. So a good portion of our home now smells like hickory bacon dog treats. And I am not exaggerating the situation.
It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine. But it all feels a bit tumultuous.
Transition and disorder disorient me. I want to crawl into a hole and go off the grid completely until I can regain some sense of control over my life. Or at least I’d like some control over my stuff, which is still largely in a state of disarray… or in boxes… or in storage.
I can acknowledge that we do make a little progress each day. We locate another lamp, hang another picture, find a favorite coffee mug. With every box we unpack and every cabinet I organize, this old house starts to feel a little more like a home. It’s just a painfully slow process.
My 4th grader is working on some fitness challenges in PE at school, and one of her goals is to become more flexible. Much like me, this child lives with a sense of urgency about most everything. So after exactly two nights of light stretching she asks, “Is my back straight yet?”
Um, no. Of course it’s not because she’s only been stretching it for two days. “Building flexibility takes time,” I say like the sage that I am in theory but not in practice.
Lord, help me take my own words to heart. Building flexibility takes time indeed. So does building a home. Building community. Growing a business. Growing a child up. It simply takes time to build or grow anything at all of real worth.
We, the people of 2021, don’t like slow. We prefer fast lanes, fast food, fast passes, quick fixes, and high-speed internet. And I am the worst offender of all. I want my house to look like a magazine today… my kids to have good friends and be happy in school today… our business to succeed today… our relational and spiritual lives to flourish today. But this is not how the Lord works or how the best things come to be.
And so I’m here in late October, uncomfortably admitting we do not have things together today. Our house is a mess, our vocational future is uncertain, and our girls are still finding their way in a new setting. It’s going to be awhile before we see or taste—let alone produce—any fruit. We are growing, but it’s slow.
This October feels different and a bit more difficult. But I’m hoping I can breathe in the crisp air of the mornings and look around at the changing leaves in the afternoon sunlight and know that this beautiful month still holds the same hope and glory it always has.
“October had tremendous possibility.
The summer’s oppressive heat was a distant memory,
and the golden leaves promised a world full of beautiful adventures.
They made me believe in miracles.”
Sarah Guilford, Reclaimed
Here’s to an autumn of slowing down and surrendering. And here’s to still believing in the beauty of October and the presence and goodness of the Lord in every season and every celebration.
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