Beauty Will Come Again

For everything there is a season,
a time for every activity under heaven.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT)

It’s Fall. The leaves are turning red and are starting to drop softly from the trees. In the early morning, there is a cold nip in the air, shadows are growing longer, the squirrels are busily collecting winter supplies, winter is approaching.

Soon there will be a dearth of flowers, bare trees will dot the landscape, ice will be clinging to the eaves of the buildings, and the ground will be shrouded in snow. This is the time when it is easy to become depressed and despondent as we face long nights and short days, gray skies and nail-biting cold. The warmth of summer seems eons away.

But God created the seasons for a reason. Winter may sometimes look like death, but under the cold, hard soil, new life is germinating, preparing to burst forth in spring.

God gives us seasons in life just as He does in nature. Winter is His time to work quietly in our lives, preparing the seeds to bloom into fragrant flowers in our upcoming spring season.

Just like the flowers will once again push through the earth to lighten our spirits, so God will take our dead hopes and dreams and breathe new life into them in due season. Beauty will come again.

To all who mourn…He will give: beauty for ashes; joy instead of mourning; praise instead of heaviness (Isaiah 61:3 TLB)