AUTUMN OF MY LIFE

The following post was originally written three years ago in 2013. As my roommate turns 50 this week (which seems younger and younger every year), I thought it a good post for today. Many will gather this afternoon to celebrate the fact that Susan is entering her "golden decade."  What most of us consider middle age, autumn of life, over the hill is for Susan a miraculous, marvelous event. When she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a baby, the doctors warned that her life expectancy was about twenty-four years! PRAISE THE LORD for sustaining her double that many years and pray with us for many more! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUSAN SLADE!!!

My Awesome Autumn

God orders and sustains the seasons and created plants that flourish in each one.  My winter veggies and pansies fade as my hyacinths and daffodils peek their heads up in early spring.  Then come the peonies, roses, and irises of spring. Summer ushers in daylilies, marigolds, and blooming sedums. This year the Lord extended my summer harvest of tomatoes and bell peppers into October!  As cooler weather brings ugly brown to much of my yard, here come the redheads!  At least that’s what I call them. They are some type of spidery lilies that rise up on a tall stalk seemingly without leaves and grace the head of my driveway every October.  They are now joined by late blooming morning glories and my newest favorite Sedum Autumn Joy whose late summer pink blooms turn fiery red in the fall.  I do believe autumn is my favorite season of all!

At fifty-six years old, some might say I am in the autumn of my life.  I enjoyed the spring – I was born to loving parents who provided a happy and nurturing home in which to grow with my two sisters. My summer years brought laughter and tears, love and betrayal, healing and hope, and in my forties the children I always knew I would have.  Right now, I feel I’m in an extended summer because I am surrounded at church by friends in their eighties and nineties!  But autumn is arriving in my life, a few more aches and pains, a little more gray hair. Watching my mother weather the storms of her winter years as she approaches her eternal spring with our Lord has aged me a bit, but the Lord has brought joy in the midst of trial. Each season has its beauty and its challenges.  Each phase of life is appointed by God who sends the sunshine and rain, summer’s heat and winter’s ice, and redheads every October.