There are but a few moments throughout the year I feel completely alive and in tune with all of creation. Fall represents one of those moments.
Hiking through GA mountains today, I couldn’t help but notice one small leaf after another descending in all of its brilliance to its ultimate resting place, the earth from which it began.
I’ve learned of four deaths in the past two weeks. No matter what stage of our brilliance we are in, one thing is for sure, we will return to the dust from which we came and our spirit will return to the Father of all spirits.
In all of the recent loss, I found myself a bit dismayed that we end up on a 3×5 card with a comforting scripture poetically placed for the ones we leave behind. A day and time announces our coming and going and roughly one paragraph depicts the years in between. The education, family, marriage, children, career, and hobbies. Yes, the summation of our existence in all we have ‘done’.
I can’t help but wonder what our exit cards would look like if God wrote them. Sure, we’ll find out on the other side of eternity, but what would HE, the Creator, say about you, the created, to those you leave behind? His magnificent child He birthed in such hope, such divine vision. His masterpiece. The depths of his grace and mercy rested on you to decorate the lives of every person you encountered. The revelation of who and what He is to his creation etched in your mind to liberate the captives, beginning with you.
I found myself wondering if he would ask, “Did you shine? Did you forgive? Did you begin with yourself and extend mercy to others. Were your scales balanced and filled with my desire for justice? Did you plead the cause of the widow and provide for the fatherless? Did you call evil, evil and good, good? Did you cover a multitude of sins in my love? Did you exercise your talents and gifts to excellence, to my glory? Did you clothe, feed and cover?
Regarding my own life, would he tell the people who have hurt me deeply and rejected me just how deep their wounds dug into my soul? Would he show them the pure forgiveness I had for them and the wish that I would someday have been found to be acceptable to fellowship with? Would he tell them how many of my tears he caught in his hand and how many prayers ascended to his throne from my lips on their behalf? Would he show them the dreams I lived and the details of what it took to achieve them? Would he run a slideshow of my life and my shortcomings and overcoming while featuring HIS faithfulness?
Like falling leaves, our brilliance is birthed through freeze, drought, sun, and rain. In our quest to fill our 3×5, I pray we all take time to celebrate ourselves, each other and our Lord, on this side of eternity. This is His good will. The JOY of the Lord is our strength. He sings songs of love over us. Ever calling us home, may the savor of our true essence be a delight unto Him and the vapors of our short time here etched into every soul we meet and every sunset and rise. May the trying of our souls result in a splendor refined only by the furnace of what we call, life.
xo,
M