"I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it." ~Lee Maynard

The sun did indeed shine yesterday, and it was beautiful!  While driving through town, I took special notice of the changing leaves in the brilliant sunshine.  Fall has always been my favorite time of year.  Albert Camus wrote that "Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."  

Fall is always a welcome season of cool temperatures after a long, hot, Texas summer.  It is filled with football, sweaters, hunting, pumpkin spice lattes, hay rides, Halloween, and Thanksgiving.  Acorns are falling while the animals are busy preparing for the winter ahead.  There's nothing quite like taking an early morning walk on a clear, crisp fall day, enjoying the changing colors, and the crunch of the fallen leaves underfoot.  Fall is also the perfect time to take account of the year - what we've done, what we didn't do, and what we can improve on next year.

We've all heard how the seasons of the year can be a metaphor of the seasons of life.  Joe L. Wheeler wrote, "Time remorselessly rumbles down the corridors and streets of our lives.  But it is not until autumn that most of us become aware that our tickets are stamped with a terminal destination... that whatever can be done with our thoughts, words, and actions must be done soon.  As we hypnotically watch the steadily diminishing reserve of sand in Life's hourglass, the instincts of a miser surface.  Life is now savored, sipped as a fine nineteenth-century French wine... It is during the autumn of our lives that this inner vintage begins to sculpt and paint the face as it seeps through the skin from within."  I'm not sure at exactly what age you enter the autumn of life.  I guess it depends largely on how long you will live on this earth, but I feel my seasons are soon to change from summer into early fall.  The "leaves" on top of my head are definitely beginning to change color!

Today as I contemplate the little things I so often take for granted,  I'm thankful for the changing seasons - especially fall - and what I can learn from them.  Just like my inability to prevent them from changing each year, I also lack control over the hourglass of time that pushes me toward the fall and winter of life.  I need to be sure that when fall comes, I am not wistfully looking back to the summer and even spring.  But like the animals, I instead should be preparing for winter - clearing away the dead leaves, and helping others who will be starting the new gardens of spring and summer, ultimately focusing on the end of my winter, when I will begin that endless spring of eternity.