change...

here it is mid october and the weather is still in the upper 80s here in the desert. today was extraordinarily beautiful...blue skies, a few clouds, sun shining and a warm breeze. you know the weather- cool enough to wear jeans and shirt with sleeves rolled up.

after picking up the two middle girls at school on tuesdays we only have about an hour before picking up henry. there is no point in driving all the way back to the house so we can be there for 15 minutes just to get back in the car to pick him up. (this is one of those areas that i envy you wonderful women in my life who homeschool!)

so with an hour to fill we headed over to AJs, a nice grocery store here in town, for a free cookie for the girls and an ice tea for me. i don't know if it was the fact that we were not in a hurry for a change or if it was that we had an hour but we got the cookies and tea and walked out into a beautiful half hour of just pure delight. we walked slowly and looked at all the fall decorations. we threw pennies in the water fountain and then just stood there for a few minutes. we walked into one of my favorite stores and enjoyed seeing the thanksgiving table decor that i would so love to put on my own table. nothing but a slow paced-no agenda half hour...it was good. so good! (now that i have written this i am wondering if maybe the fact that two out of three kids were in a stroller may have been a huge contributing factor to the calm as well.)

after we loaded back into the car and headed over to the school i began processing the whys of such a peaceful bit of the day. as i said before there were probably several contributing factors but one that stood out to me was the weather.

a common ice breaker question is, "what is your favorite season?". my answer to that is always fall...until someone else answers and gives their reasoning. what i realized today is that i love all the seasons (in moderation re: arizona summers) but more than the season, i love the changing of seasons. it is like a rebirth of sorts. i find that with the dawning of a new season there is hope for change in my own life. i am a sucker for school supply season and for the spring color options for kitchen aid mixers in the william-sonoma window. store shelves with scarves or winter hats and sunscreen usher in more of the same- hope for change and newness.

so there you have it- my favorite season is the changing season!

Lord, You are the Author of hope and i praise You for it! because of the cross i have hope and i thank you for letting me see that with the change of the season hope can be see there too. thank you for showing Yourself to me today in the stillness of that one half hour!