The leaves fall off.
It happens every year, so we don’t panic when the final blaze of color comes and the last of the autumn leaves drops. Soon enough, new leaves will begin to bud. While winter may be bleak and dreary, the thrill of spring isn’t far away. It’s the same cycle every year. It shouldn’t get us down.
Life in general is a little like that. The leaves fall off. It’s inevitable. A new house is like a spring day; it’s exciting to move in and enjoy the smell of new paint and new carpet and the ease of life without repairs. But, we should know that it won’t last. The leaves will fall off. Paint fades. Carpet gets stained. Rooms that seemed expansive seem to shrink.
New jobs are fun, too! What a thrill to be handed your very own keys to your first office! But, the leaves will fall off. You’ll make a few mistakes – maybe even big ones. In Australia, a teenage boy started to work as a plumber’s helper to learn the trade. On his first day on the job, he inadvertently started a fire with a torch. Before the blaze was extinguished, a $12 million dollar waterfront mansion was reduced to ashes. Oh, the leaves do sometimes fall off in a hurry!
Marriages go through seasons just as surely as does nature. Friendships do, too. Even churches do. Sooner or later, the leaves will fall off.
But, that shouldn’t be a surprise. The same God who designed trees so their leaves fall off warned us long ago that our own lives would experience something much like that. “Cursed is the ground because of you” he said, “. . . It will produce thorns and thistles for you” (Genesis 3:17-18).
In other words, sometimes the leaves fall off. We have a bad day, or maybe even a bad year. We fail at something. But life isn’t over when the leaves fall; it’s just going through a seasonal change. Hopefully, it helps to know it’s coming. Maybe it helps to remember that our Creator makes life bloom again if we’ll just endure the winter.
The leaves will fall off. Perhaps the best response from us is to enjoy the changing colors while we can and to look forward to better days -if not in this life, then certainly in the life to come.