Evotional - Autumn Thoughts

Two pieces to share today and then a thought of my own. First, a prayer/poem...

"Turn my Soil"

Turn over
Gently
My dry, cracked soil.
Just a little,
Let it breathe
In the cooling air of autumn
And then be watered
By Your life-giving rain.

- Kathy Keay, England

And a line from the Psalms...

"When you send forth your spirit, all is created;
and you renew the face of the ground."

- Psalm 104:30

These cooler fall days bring us to a time of harvest and, eventually, to a time of winter rest. But even the beginning signs of decay that we see these days - dry corn stalks, crackly leaves, frost-tinged tomato plants - all come as reminders of an ancient rhythm of life and death and new life. The smell of autum is the smell of creation slowly and graciously returning to the soil, where it will await the day it can energize the next generation of shoots and saplings.

As you consider the rhythms of your existence - rhythms of joy and grief, loss and birth - may you feel God's patient presence, gently turning over the patches of dry, cracked soil in your life, making room, perhaps for the promise of new growth.

Peace,
Pastor Ben