The Light in the Leaves

Sometimes a day comes along that just knocks me over the head with its beauty.  Today was just such a day.  I know that there will be prettier fall days to come.  The trees haven't put on all of their autumn splendor, but when you've been worried and  the sun breaks through, then the day holds special beauty.

My mom is coming home from the hospital today after a two week stay.  We children have worked to ease the load a bit for my parents as they struggled to make sense of the hard realities of illness.  But, we couldn't really carry their load for them.  They carried it and then leaned on us when it felt like too much.

My community has suffered a deep tragedy this week as well, and all of us are shattered as we consider events that we wish could be undone.  We are mourning for those involved, but also for ourselves as we consider how fragile this life we live is.

Sometimes, I can't make sense of the difficult things of this world.  I want to ask God why, but that's an unanswerable question. Events in this life are sometimes the result of ripples from a pebble dropped in another time or place. I am grateful that God gave us each other so we could navigate those ripples together. Sometimes, I see Him most clearly when I look in the eyes of a concerned friend.

So, after a week of helping and being helped, I took a walk in the sunshine and gathered evidence that the world holds beauty, even when things seem dark.  The winter is coming, yet the leaves are glorious in the sun.

I gathered bouquets and put them where the sun could make cathedral windows of my plain glass.  Now we see in a glass darkly, but one day we shall see face to face.  The stained glass leaves in my windows remind me of the beauty yet to come.