This is the first Fall in twenty years that we have not been sending someone off to school.  It feels strange to see the piles of notebooks in the store and walk on past, get excited at the colorful desk supplies on the shelves and then realize that none of that applies to us any more.  I have always loved this time of year, the familiarity of the back-to-school schedule, the change in the way the air feels, the color in the trees, the excitement of a home that embraces learning.  In the space, the quiet, I think how this Fall is something new– I wonder what birds do with nests when they lay empty, open to the sky.

My daughter is in another state, unpacking boxes of New, organizing the layers of a home, building a nest that will nourish many lives in the years to come. Learning a new town…looking for a job…making new friends…breaking in her new kitchen with the first cooking adventures…wife, homemaker, all grown up this Fall and excited with the learning of it.

I think of a friend who has just sent her only daughter off to Middle School, worried about the adjustments, and another who is excited to be a grandmother for the first time. Then there is the woman who is welcoming her late-twenty-something son back home for a time, and the one who is taking care of her dear fading mother, and the one who is recovering from serious injuries under the care of strangers. New seasons, and unfamiliar, stretching us to capacity and beyond. And I send up whispered prayers for all of us women finding new challenges on our doorsteps, adjusting to the change of circumstances and roles.

We joke in our small group sometimes about the saying that is on my refrigerator: “This too shall pass.”  Hope for mothers of toddlers and teens indeed, but as I get older it takes on a note of warning, a reminder that there is always more to learn, more good-byes to say, and one season will certainly flow into another before you are quite ready. And where would we be without the kindness and encouragement of other women in all these seasons of life?

In the golden light of this new Fall, I sit in a quiet house and wonder what will come, and remember that this is how God made it to be: all the times and seasons flowing towards Him– always changing and shaping us in them, and coming alongside one another to help– till someday there is an End to every season. And He promises to be with us until then.

“You are peace, You are peace, When my fear is crippling
You are true, You are true, Even in my wandering
You are joy, You are joy, You’re the reason that I sing
You are life, You are life, In You death has lost its sting

Oh I’m running to Your arms, I’m running to Your arms
The riches of Your love Will always be enough
Nothing compares to Your embrace
Light of the world forever reign” (Forever Reign– Reuben Morgan and Jason Ingram)

“Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.” (Philippians 4:13, The Message)