IN A BLAZE OF GLORY

Golden yellow . . . burnt orange . . . flaming red . . . the fall of the year is literally a feast for the eyes as trees turn from various shades of green to all those bright hues that beckon us to the mountains, the woods, or even our own backyards.

My family lived in Virginia near the Blue Ridge Parkway for eleven years. Every October, we made our annual trek to the Parkway to view the glorious foliage, and we were never disappointed. Along with the stunning colors, we were delighted with the nip in the air, apple harvests, picnics beside mountain streams, and walks along wooded trails. We often collected those bright leaves to make collages, tangible reminders throughout the year of God’s color palette and His striking creativity in nature’s shapes, sizes, and hues. 

When we were children, I remember all of us joyfully jumping into piles of raked leaves; now, I don't recall why that was so much fun! As adults, I suppose we often think only of the work it takes to get those leaves into piles and removed from our yards. Back then, the fall season was exhilarating—it represented the start of school, frosty mornings, clear sunshine, the anticipation of wonderful holidays to come, and especially the anticipation of snow.



Still my favorite time of the year, fall always evokes fond memories, but also creates new ones. My husband of nearly forty-one years, then my fiancé, returned home safely in the fall of 1970 from a tour in Vietnam. We were married in December of that year. Every fall generates a happy recollection of that memory as we look forward to celebrating another wedding anniversary together. Today, with our children and grandchildren, our family enjoys celebrating birthdays and other anniversaries together in the fall as well. And, even after all these years, I still see young children today having a great deal of fun jumping into piles of leaves!

To me, those gorgeous colors of fall represent nature’s cycle of life—before the leaves wither and fall to the ground, they go out in a “blaze of glory,” painted brilliantly by God’s own hand. We can take our cue from those leaves, realizing that our lives are like tapestries woven by God’s hand as well, but He often allows us to choose our own colors as we make our choices and decisions that ultimately affect the final design.


There are times that dark, somber threads, representing difficulties we face, are woven into our tapestries beyond our control, but the Master Weaver knows what He is doing and wants to create something beautiful with our lives. We can rail against circumstances by attempting to rip out those dark threads which, from our limited view, are mistakes. But we can only see the underside of the tapestry, whereas God looks
down on the finished side of the weaving. Those somber threads are actually there to refine, and thus illuminate by contrast, all the colorful elements of these tapestries to make them even more beautiful. God wants to refine our lives, sometimes through trial and difficulty, to make us more like Him, all the while weaving in beauty and texture that we might not totally understand or see at the time.

Let us trust Him with our tapestries—not only with the wonderfully vibrant colors we get to choose, but also with those seemingly improbable dark tones He sometimes weaves into them. Our lives will then manifest a ”blaze of glory” like those beautiful fall leaves—for others to enjoy.

FALL AND DACHSHUNDS

Two things that I absolutely love are the fall season and dachshunds. Oh, I love chocolate, my family, rain, and lots of other things, but today I'm focusing on these two things. A few years ago, I wrote a fall piece entitled In A Blaze of Glory about the fall season. I posted it on this blog, and I will repost it here tomorrow--it explains why I love fall so much.

Here are some pictures I hope you will  enjoy like I have:

The Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina

"Wheeeeeeeeeeee!"

Self explanatory!

Have a wonderful Tuesday, doxie lovers!

FALL, Y'ALL!

I know I'll have rotten tomatoes thrown at me, but I'm so glad summer is waning and fall is coming! Summers, especially here in Georgia, are too hot and humid for me. SO IT'S MY TURN!! There's a cool, crisp feeling in the air now; nights have dipped into the 50s, and the air is clear because of lower humidity.

In that vein, I look forward to the colorful leaves, pumpkins--the whole nine yards. I wrote a fall article (included below) which was published in The Christian Post in 2012. It states perfectly how I feel about the fall season:

IN A BLAZE OF GLORY

Golden yellow . . . burnt orange . . . flaming red . . . the fall of the year is literally a feast for the eyes as trees turn from various shades of green to all those bright hues that beckon us to the mountains, the woods, or even our own backyards.

When we were children, I remember jumping joyfully into piles of raked leaves; now, I can't recall why that was so much fun! As adults, I suppose we often think only of the work it takes to get those leaves into piles and removed from our yards. Back then, the fall season was exhilarating—it represented the start of school, frosty mornings, clear sunshine, the anticipation of wonderful holidays to come, and especially the anticipation of snow.


My family lived in Virginia near the Blue Ridge Parkway for eleven years. Every October, we made our annual trek to the Parkway to view the glorious foliage, and we were never disappointed. Along with the stunning colors, we were delighted with the nip in the air, apple harvests, picnics beside mountain streams, and walks along wooded trails. We often collected those bright leaves to make collages, tangible reminders throughout the year of God’s color palette and His striking creativity in nature’s shapes, sizes, and hues.

Still my favorite time of the year, fall always evokes fond memories, but also creates new ones. My husband, then my fiancé, returned home safely in November 1970 from a tour in Vietnam. We were married in December of that year. Every fall generates a happy recollection of that memory as we look forward to celebrating another wedding anniversary together. Today, with our children and grandchildren, our family enjoys celebrating birthdays and other anniversaries together in the fall as well. And, even after all these years, I still see young children today excitedly jumping into piles of leaves!

To me, those gorgeous colors of fall represent nature’s cycle of life—before the leaves wither and fall to the ground, they go out in a “blaze of glory,” painted brilliantly by God’s own hand. We can take our cue from those leaves, realizing that our lives are like tapestries woven by God’s hand as well--but He often allows us to choose our own colors as we make our choices and decisions that ultimately affect the final design.

There are times that dark, somber threads, representing difficulties we face, are woven into our tapestries beyond our control, but the Master Weaver knows what He is doing and wants to create something beautiful with our lives. We can rail against circumstances by attempting to rip out those dark threads which are, from our limited view, mistakes. But we can only see the underside of the tapestry, whereas God looks down on the finished side of the weaving. Those somber threads are actually there to refine, and thus illuminate by contrast, all the colorful elements of these tapestries to make them even more beautiful. God wants to refine our lives, sometimes through trial and difficulty, to make us more like Him, all the while weaving in beauty and texture that we might not totally understand or see at the time.

Let us trust Him with our tapestries—not only with the wonderfully vibrant colors we get to choose, but also with those seemingly improbable dark tones He sometimes weaves into them. Our lives will then manifest a ”blaze of glory” like those beautiful fall leaves—for others to enjoy.

IT'S ALMOST FALL, Y'ALL!

It's time for my annual tribute to fall, my favorite season of the year! What do I like about fall?

memories:

• I met my hubby in the month of October
• he asked me to marry him in the month of November
• we married in the month of December (two years later)  

other reasons:

• cooler, less humid air
• beautiful colors
• apple harvest
• pumpkin spice everything
• clear, not hazy, sunshine
• hint of holidays to come
• numerous family birthdays and anniversaries

and . . .

• I just feel better when the weather is cooler!

What about you?

CAN YOU FIND DUKE?

Clark and me on our wedding day:
we were so young!

 I took this photo of our yard (and Duke) just this morning. Ah, the leaves!  We had 16 straight days of rain here in Georgia, ending on Monday, finally. When I let Duke out, I saw that he was enjoying smelling the fall leaves, so I decided to snap the photo of our yard. All the leaves haven't yet fallen, as you can see across the street to our neighbor's yard, but Clark is itching to get out there and clean it up once again. I told him that it will be covered within 15 minutes after he gets all those leaves up, but he says he has to stay ahead of it or he'll never get it cleared out. There are woods all around our house, and our backyard backs up to woods as well.

He subs in our county schools most days, so he won't have the opportunity to do the yard until Saturday--at this point, the weather app on my cell says isn't supposed to rain then.

Fall is my favorite time of the year. Clark returned from Vietnam in November 1970. We were engaged before he left, so I had an entire year to plan our wedding. We wed in December that year.

Happy fall, y'all!

King of the rock

HAPPY FALL, Y'ALL!

It's no secret to those who know me that fall is my favorite time of the year!  I love everything about it, from the beautiful leaves to the cool nip in the air. I no longer drip sweat (Rx medications I take make it worse), the bugs don't eat me alive, and the humidity doesn't make me feel like I am fighting a sleeping pill!

Enjoy these "eye candy" scenes:

EQUAL TIME!

I recently posted a picture of grandson Asher posing with the fall decor at home . . . our daughter has since taken a picture of all three children, so in order to give "equal time," I am posting this one of Asher with his sisters, Annika and Alexa. 

They are growing so fast!  Happy fall, everyone :).

LIL' PUNKIN'

Our two-year-old grandson Asher is all set for fall and Halloween.  In fact, he loves pumpkins!  His mom, our daughter Holly, told him to say "pumpkin" to get him to smile for his picture. 

As you can see, that suggestion worked!  He's a sweetie :).

PUNKIN' TIME!

With the approach of fall, my favorite time of year, we anticipate pumpkin carvings, frost, leaves, Halloween, Thanksgiving--well, you get the idea :).

This is one of my favorite doxie fall pictures.  Enjoy!

THE FOUR SEASONS OF LIFE

I'm thankful to live in a place that has all four seasons.  My favorite one is fall, because of the beautiful colors, cooler temperatures, and so much to celebrate in our family:  birthdays, anniversaries, and of course  the anticipation of Thanksgivings and Christmases to come.

Life has its seasons as well.  I've pondered those lately, seeing life divided into the following seasons:

SEASON ONE: LOOKING FORWARD (Spring)

Babies and young children look forward as they grow, change, and see their entire lives ahead of them.  They face the future, which seems interminable to them.  The sunrise has just occurred, and its rays have just peeked over the treetops.



SEASON TWO - LOOKING INWARD (Summer)
Adolescence brings inner searching:  what will I do with my life?  Young adults are starting careers, getting married, raising families, and all of these things prompt them to use their inner strengths in order to fulfill all their responsibilities.  There are also mature adults with a couple of decades of work behind them, children raised, and retirement looming ahead in a decade or so--these are satisfying years, the middle of life--as the sun shines its brightest, straight down on us at noon.



SEASON THREE - LOOKING BACK (Fall)

Those in this season of life have either just retired or have been retired for years.  They tend to look back upon all their accomplishments, successes, and wonder where all those years went!  This season can be a time of introspection, taking up hobbies they had no time for in previous seasons.  The sunset is just beyond, although the sun has not yet reached the horizon.



SEASON FOUR - LOOKING UP (Winter)

The final season can be greatly blessed by what one makes of it.  In looking back over life, reliving many happy times, thankful for all those wonderful memories of shared times, children's laughter, those in the season of winter wonder how they managed to do everything in the summer of their lives!  Muscles and joints don't work like they once did. 

Is this a sad season, this winter of life?  Not at all--Christians have been "looking up" most of their lives, but in this season, faith in God sustains, knowing that heaven will be theirs one of these days.  The sun is nearly set, casting colorful rays over the horizon. 

The journey of seasons is almost over, but the eternal journey is about to begin!

Are you ready?