Seasons of the Soul

A couple weeks ago the boys and I propped waist-high scarecrows wearing burlap clothes and painted smiles on the front steps of our town home, and we picked out orange mini-pumpkins at the grocery store and dug out last year’s thrift-store-décor from underneath the basement stairs—six inch scarecrows with yellow straw poking out of orange-checked shirt sleeves—and I let Josiah arrange (and re-arrange and re-arrange) the mini-pumpkins and scarecrows on our china buffet.

Josiah's Final Arrangement:)

And this week I tripped on acorns hidden in our brown carpet and watched the oak tree out front shed curly leaves while squirrels scampered up and down the trunk with bulging cheeks. And in the late afternoon sun, I watered browning petunias in flipflops, crisp leaves tickling my bare toes.

It’s fall again.

Fall is my favorite time of year. I savor snuggling in bed under warm blankets in early morning, long runs in crisp air over leaf-strewn trails, and the promise of Thanksgiving and Christmas in cool breezes and 5pm sunsets. And last Fall I learned from an expert gardener that oak leaves make great compost for Spring plants, so I scooped up crunchy leaves and buried them in moist dirt, hoping for richer earth and stronger plants in Spring.

This year, as oak leaves pile round my front door and fill empty pots on my front steps, I ponder the reminder that fall brings: death—loss—births new life.  Just as fall precedes winter and winter, spring, so death precedes redemption: “Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, ⁵ made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

When we were dead—consumed with Self—God, who is merciful, made us alive in Him!

In recent years the winter winds of trial stripped me bare—the loss of three babies, not yet named, the loss of my Grandpa, 95 years old, the loss of family relationships, the loss of expectations for what life should be, and in this bare-naked state—stripped of Self—I finally looked to Christ.  

“Not until self dies can Christ live in us; not until self dies can we possess the faith that works by love and purifies the soul.” (ST, October 11, 1899, emphasis mine.)

When Self dies (and continues, daily, to die) a willingness to risk all for Christ—relationships, material possessions, career, reputation—fills the soul, and you live FREE!

 "The deepest death to self lies in the motives and intentions, hence this all-consuming motive to want to be nothing but a capacity for Christ to live in, lies at the foundation of the death of self and the highest life of Christ.” (G.D. Watson, emphasis mine).

In other words, the deepest death to self is a genuine—all consuming—desire to let Christ be all. When Christ is all, my soul rests in the knowledge that the difficult seasons of this life are birthing new life in my heart—a deeper reliance on Christ and true, lasting Joy.

So, when the trials of this life strip you bare, when the winter winds of difficulty seem to last forever, remember that death births new life, that God is fertilizing your soul so that your reliance on him is deep, rich and true, and just when you think winter will never end, Spring blooms in your heart.

"Be not afraid, though every stay [foundation]
Should fail, or be removed away,
And thou be stript of all;
But lose thyself in that vast sea,
The ocean of the Deity,
And all thy cares shall fall.

In death which is the most profound,
The purest life is always found;
Then, blindly, all forego!
He ne’re shall find, who will not lose;
Who sinks from self, shall gain repose,
Which none but he can know."

(Gerhard Tersteegen, emphasis mine)