Autumn Again

It's Autumn again. You wouldn't know it from the trees. But I know it is because the shadows grow longer earlier in the afternoon, and the air is a lot cooler for more of the day.
I love Autumn. Those of you who have read this blog for the past year have probably figured that out. I have been thinking about posting about Autumn for a while but only now found the time.

One morning as I was walking to campus I thought about why I love autumn so much.
I remembered high school soccer games, the smell of fresh cut grass, and the chill of the air running across the field.
I remembered the dreary cloudy days in New York and Ohio where all you wanted to do was stay at home in your pjs and watch the rain come down, or football on tv.
I remembered several Autumns during which I found myself in a new place.
Fall of my junior year I was at Cedarville, followed by Focus on the Family Institute in Colorado, then Beijing, China, and then my most recent stop, Auburn, Alabama. Each Autumn holds the seeds of new beginnings.

I think when most people think of Autumn, they think of things dying. The leaves change color, and die and fall leaving trees barren. Crops die, which is why we harvest. But even in that there is hope. Even Jesus said of his own death, "Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

I think Autumn is most special to me because it is evidence that even when things change, they are renewed. It is a reminder of many special things in my life, having planted seeds, they may now come to fruition. It is a reminder that though there is death, life remains victorious.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Sometimes I feel like my life is made up of several lives.
It seems like a lifetime since I was in college and yet my graduating class is only celebrating our fifth anniversary since graduating. And yet it was four years ago that I returned from China.

I think I just miss all the different activities that I participated in during college.
I was a musician once. I still am in many ways. Much like many people don't realize that I am actually from New York state, they may not realize that I earned a music minor in college.
I give small clues to my musical abilities though - if you listen closely enough; whether it's harmonizing with choruses we're singing, or anticipating the next chord in the bridge of the song that's being played.

In college I was a member of the Brass Choir and played the trombone, and I was in the symphonic band and played the french horn. Both instruments now sit in my room suffering from neglect. I also sing, and did so in college more regularly.
It was in my Freshman year of college that I began to understand more about what worship in song meant, and then later how worship also involved surrender.

There was a singing group that just began my freshman year at Cedarville. It was called Jubilate and it was described as a worship team, but it was composed of some 70 voices, which is a large singing group by any stretch of the imagination. But we sang praises to God and thanked him for all the ways that He had been faithful in our lives. For example, during one performance for the Cedarville chapel time a number of us were invited to tell of the things for which we were most thankful. I was most thankful that my grandmother, who had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, had been ushered into eternity and was enjoying that life free from the earthly body. Such was the worship and praise of this group...to encourage an eternal view of life.
We also had the chance to accompany a Christian vocalist named Steve Camp.
It was this experience that has caused me to think the most on that spring of my freshman year.
The title of the album that he was then promoting was "Mercy in the Wilderness."
It instantly endeered itself to my heart in a number of ways, but mostly in the sixth track of that CD: Wonderful, Merciful Savior.

Wonderful, Merciful Savior, precious redeemer and friend,
who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of men, oh, you rescue the souls of men.

Counselor, comforter, keeper, Spirit we long to embrace. You offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost the way. Oh we hopelessly lost the way.

You are the One that we praise, You are the One we adore. You give the healing and grace our hearts always hunger for.

Almighty, Infinite Father, faithfully loving Your own. Here in our weakness you find us.
Falling before Your throne, oh, we're falling before Your throne.

I think that may be why I am so disappointed when our worship meetings focus on a handful of songs: because the songs that mean the most to me are not the ones that are new, but they are the ones that communicate the most to God from my heart. And communicate the most between God's heart and my own.

I guess the main point for these recollections was as a vehicle for sharing those song lyrics,
but to also express the pilgrimmage. I am not what I once was, and yet that person was the starting point for who I am now. And He has been with me the whole way.
Praise Him for His faithfulness!