It’s officially autumn. This morning when I woke up, the world was cold. Like, 36° cold. My morning walk was not as comfortable as usual. 

But with the cold comes beautiful autumn colors and crunchy fallen leaves. To quote Anne of Green Gables, “I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

This month, my beautiful thing isn’t an art thing or anything of that breed. 

Last weekend, I was given the great blessing of visiting some dear friends of mine that I had not seen for over a year. Our time together was an absolute treasure, spent screaming with delight, discussing writing, buying discount books, eating good food, and talking about life late into the night. 

I think sometimes we trick ourselves into thinking that friendship is nothing special, but that is a lie. Friendship is a remarkable gift. The past weekend was incredibly refreshing, and it wasn’t just because my friend is possibly the most encouraging person I have ever met. There’s something deeper and more real about it.

Proverbs 27:9 says that “Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel.” There is an earnestness to Gospel friendship that makes the heart glad, much as perfume and oil. Some Bible translations use the word refresh. 

Here’s to refreshing friendships. To the beauty that grows out of spending year after year building relationships that will last a lifetime. 

It’s October. The leaves are beginning to change, something that always makes me think. I think about beauty and death and change. Change, especially, is a hard one. This is a wrestling match I’ve had with myself and with God on more than one occasion. Especially in the spring, I found Ecclesiastes 3 to be deeply comforting, and I was privileged to revisit it last weekend. I’ve been thinking about it almost ever since. 

In the past I have loved the first part of the verse, promising beauty from joy and beauty from ashes. But that wasn’t my focus this week. The thing that has stuck out to me so strongly is that God has put eternity in our hearts, but has not allowed us to know every detail of eternity! We cannot see it all. It is hidden from us. As Anne Shirley (from Anne of Green Gables) would say, there is a bend in the road! 

But this leaves us with a question. Why? Why would God put eternity in our hearts, and then make it so that we cannot know what He has done from the beginning to the end? 

I think that it comes down to trust. 

I was on a walk, begging the Lord to take away my emotional unrest. “I want to know what I need to do!” I was telling Him. Begging Him for answers as to where my future was headed and what precisely (in a 5 step plan, please) He wanted me to do for the next 25 years. 

I was looking at my feet as I prayed. 

“You only need to take the next step,” He said. 

 There’s a bend in the road. And I’m not meant to know what’s around it yet. The eternity in my heart? It’s there to bring that tension–that longing for the new creation, on the day when all will be well. And it’s there to remind me that I need to trust Him. If I didn’t care or desire to know what was ahead, I wouldn’t see my need to trust the Lord as urgently as I do when I wrestle with desire and curiosity and excitement. 

Praise God, He makes us wait. He makes us trust. He gives the future to us in digestible, bite sized pieces that we can reconcile instead of overwhelming us with a future we are not yet ready to experience. 

A Verse to Take With You As You Go…

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.” Romans 15:13