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| I am that girl. |
I didn't always love fall. In fact, I used to
hate it. It was that gray, rainy season full of muddy walks to school and wet, slimy leaves sticking to my shoes. It was brown, and it required raking, which required being outside--I used to
hate being outside. Worst of all, fall held nothing to look forward to except colder and colder mornings and cars covered in frost and ice. So much ice.
When I was a sophomore in college, everything changed.
It wasn't because I discovered pumpkin spice lattes, or cardigans, or scarves. And I definitely hadn't gotten excited about the impending death of everything in nature. No, it had been a combination of graces that led me to change my mind about the season one day.
It had been a mild fall, so the day wasn't terribly chilly. Dark clouds had begun to roll in to contrast the morning sunshine. A great breeze picked up and it was as if the sun-kissed trees were waving me on. I felt the Spirit moving around me and I breathed deeply, and I knew that I love fall.
That semester had followed a dark, depressing summer for me. I was struggling to adjust back to life at school, to become more financially independent, and to make new friends (some of my best friends from my freshman year were studying in Austria for the semester).
One Monday night, I wanted desperately to just sit in my dorm room and feel sorry for myself, but some friends invited me to go bowling with a big group of people. At first I declined. I'm awkward around people I don't know well, and in my emotional state, I wasn't sure I'd be able to choke up the energy.
As I sat in my room I realized that I had a choice. I didn't have to let my depression weigh me down. I could stay there and sink further into my depression, or I could get up and go and maybe have a good time. Besides, if I went and it was awful, I never had to go again. Suddenly, there was a strength inside of me (the Holy Spirit, I'm sure), determinedly pushing me to my feet. I would not let the depression win!
I had no idea that the people I would meet that night would change me forever. It became a weekly tradition--Monday night bowling followed by either Tim Horton's or Taco Bell and/or a movie at someone's house or a random dance party in a parking lot on campus. We would always meet in the cafeteria for lunch and dinner, taking over two long tables with our laughter and conversation, sitting for hours in that gross building because we were having such a good time. We were an eclectic group, but for the first time in my life, I felt like I had found friends with whom I really belonged. I'd had good friends growing up, but never one solid group with similar beliefs and interests. These people became like a family to me. Through them, the Lord pulled me out of my depression and showed me who I am--a loved young woman.
That fall, I learned agape.
What followed was the opening of my heart to the Lord. I gave Him everything, and the next year was the best of my life. It was challenging and full and colorful and I thought I fell in love so many times but it was really just once--one long plunge into the ocean of Mercy. At times it was dark and painful and sometimes so lonely I couldn't breathe, but my tears of sorrow always became tears of thanksgiving.
The following fall I was in Austria, where I fell head over heals in love with Jesus and His Mother--I heard God better in Europe for some reason. Maybe because I lived here:
Yeah, that definitely helped. It helped me get through the coming year of uncertainties and separation and certainties and alienation. More pain followed me through the year and pressed on more intensely in the fall of my senior year, and in the pain I discovered real strength--reliance on God.
Strength isn't independence. It's dependence on God. That's a lesson I still learn every day. It's a lesson I finally put into practice two falls later when my heart was lonely, but I placed my trust in God and His perfect timing. The next week a young man bought me dinner, and we fell in love. The next fall, our love only grew stronger.
And this year I hear so many people complain about fall and how it's so cold and rainy and gross and everything dies and winter is coming and that means snow and ice and cold.
And all I have to say about that is NOT "pumpkin spice latte pumpkin spice latte pumpkin spice latte" but agape.
Agape. The love God has for us. The love we have for God. The love we have for one another. The love. There is so much love in the club!
It's what I think about when I think about fall. It's what I remember when I wake up at 4:30 and suddenly it's 7 am and the sun still isn't shining. I think about evenings in the cafeteria and the smokey bowling alley with the people who changed my life forever. I think of the place of incredible beauty, the place of terrible pain, the place of love lost and love found, the place of death turned new life.
This love is available to all of us, all the time, and we have a choice--to love or to hate, to let ourselves be loved or to let our lives weigh us down, to hide from the world or face the rain with a smile and a heart full of gratitude.
Fall may be the season when everything dies, but life always goes on and starts anew. And through all the ups and downs, we get by with a little help from our friends.
Thank You, God, for mine.
