Here’s the thing: I like and hate fall.
Like: Because I love the colors. And the smells. There’s something beautiful about driving down the highway and seeing the vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges. And there’s something soothing about the smell of burning wood at bonfires and. And dry leaves smell an awful lot like the pages of novels. Fall makes me want to curl up with my man and read a good book while the sweet smells of fall fill the air.
Hate: It means winter is coming. And… I. Hate. Winter. Moving on:
I caught the most beautiful shot on our back patio today. Amongst the dingy-colored leaves that had fallen on our blacktopped patio, I saw a vibrantly red leaf. (More info on this pic can be found here.)
Strangely, this leaf got to my heart. I think it represents me, right now.
Dry. Uncomfortable. Fallen.
It also reminds me of Christ.
Redeeming. Thirst-quenching.
You see, my failure is not ever the end of the story. I neglect. I deprioritize. I reject the importance of the solemn and sincere alone times with God. Instead, I fill my time, my heart, and my thoughts with other things–empty things. And I don’t even realize it.
This, in turn, reminds me of friendship. Sometimes, we straight-up ignore a friend and reject them. More often, we unknowingly move away from them, only realizing our failure when the change has become so drastic that the emptiness has become drastic. The sudden realization has us retracing our steps before we pick up the phone to call the dear friend. I’ve been on the receiving and giving end of this phenomenon.
Dependably, every time I’m on the receiving end and I cry out to Christ with my why question, He reminds me that I’m not the only victim.
And, in fact, my pain is small compared to His.
After He literally gave His life for me, I still have the audacity to neglect. To deprioritize. To reject. Simple request: time, passion.
For some, time is a delicacy–something special but rare. I know that I waste it with the best of ’em. I fill my extra time with research–harmless research. I learn about the neatest and simplest tricks to get stains out of pans; I find recipes which are easy and delicious. I see inspirational photography and dream of mimicking the pose, angle, joy.
And. I. Still. Feel. Empty. And gross.
Jeremiah 2.13 says, “…My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
There is, of course, more than meets the eye here in this verse. Cisterns during the time of this writing caught rain water and runoffs. This means that the cisterns were fabulous places for sludge and disease and mosquitoes. Gross. On top of that, the cisterns mentioned here didn’t even hold the water, effectively acting as a strainer which holds anything not water–namely, sludge.
I rejoice in the facts: Jesus doesn’t require me to fix my cistern–only to return to His flowing and refreshing waters. No runoff water; just pure, clean, refreshing water.
His fountain is matchless.
Bountifully,
