Changing Lens

The chill of fall is definitely here. I feel it creeping in under the doors and moving through me to envelope my heart once again.

Perhaps it's the seasonal soccer games that cause me to take the first steps along this pathway. As I watch my grandsons at their weekly games, I am instantly there. And I know it is not always a conscious choice I make . . . to go to thoughts of Scott. It is just a natural place to be. So when Jack so proudly defended his goal, when he repeatedly kicked the ball away from the box, it just came out. Go, Scott! On the sidelines of the soccer field my thoughts inexplicably go to how life was, how life could have been . . . and how.life.SHOULD.be.

Perhaps it's in knowing what the chill of fall brings. It is inevitable ~ cooler nights and shortened days will escort in the grip of winter. It is easy for me to find myself emotionally, mentally, and socially preparing to close down for another winter of grief as the shadows of my sorrow stretch long across the landscape of my heart.

The chill outside brings the awareness that my winter of grief will soon be upon me. Just as the cooler days drive me deep into my closet to drag out my sweaters and jeans, so too I begin to consider how to protect my heart from the harsh realities that so readily seem to consume me.

Honestly, it is only by changing the lens through which I look at this season that brings warmth to my grieving heart. The Apostle Paul writes in II Corinthians 5 that this earthly tent of ours ~ the mortal body ~ will one day be torn down. And when that happens, he writes, that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Did you see that? Can you bring the contrast of those words into focus? When this mortal body is no more, we are not swallowed up by death. We are swallowed up by life.

Changing lens does not mean that the brutal force of winter will not be present in my life. The seasons of grief are quite predictable to those who mourn. But this new lens illuminates the fact that the chill of fall and the hard freeze of winter, also brings the hope of life ~ in the warming days of spring ~ and forever in eternity.

(Photo courtesy of my cousin, Bev Henry.)