Autumn, Glory, and Hope

10.27.25

There is a feast of colors in the trees, and death in the garden.

Frost came on the tail of a burst of autumn like we’ve rarely seen, bright and beautiful, streaking across mountains in details that the greatest lacework should envy. It colors the hills orange, where the sage grass shifts in the wind, earthy brown where leaves have fallen beneath once laden branches.

I love the deep russet of the oaks, the bold yellows of the beech trees, and the bright, vibrant colors of the maples that make your heart long for Eden.

Or rather, for a Greater Eden.

Dahlia plants lay in a heap, their tall, proud stalks a horrible brown beneath a killing frost, that brought more color to the world, by taking life out of it. Greens trickle back into roots, chilled rain falls from the sky, and summer is lost to autumn, alive with brilliant lights.

I have waited for Autumn, as one waits for evening; not because it will bring life, but because it will bring the light before the quiet, so that life can come again, with morning. As the quiet of night, and all that is dark and still precedes the dawn.

So comes Winter, a Herald, a bringer of Spring.

So comes Autumn, a Herald of Winter.

Darkness before light, night before dawn. Winter before Spring. And in Autumn, the dusk of the year, the world now sits, preparing for rest.

Preparing for celebrations.

Because the whole world knows that the best parties come after the sun has set, when hearts are quiet and ready to be glad, the work put away and done. The best celebrations come in Winter.

Today, there is anticipation in the air.
It’s neither glad, nor troubled, only waiting, and I wait with it, wait to see what the Lord will do.
Wait to see what glad things Autumn will bring like a blaze, before the gladness of Winter comes, cold and quiet, and ready to hear. I wait for stillness, and I wait for the season of glad tidings, when in the darkness, we celebrate the Greatest Light to ever come into the world, when all the world is covered with frost, and still. Waiting.

Waiting like the world waited for Jesus.

Waiting, like Winter waits for warmth.

Waiting, like Dawn waited for the Risen King.
The entire world waited with bated breath, crying out with birth pangs for the day that we now celebrate in winter, when Christ came, and death was broken, crushed in victory that cannot be tainted with time or seasons.

So, this fall, I sit and wait, in a garden full of death, watching the trees light up with the end of the joy of Summer, and all that it brought. I wait, knowing the Light has already come into the darkness.

I wait, knowing that fall is only a passing shadow, before glory.

I wait, knowing the Word has already been made flesh, and dwelt among us.

I wait knowing that we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father.

Leaves tumble from trees, alight with a fading glory.
But we wait for a Greater One, when Spring comes again.