Leaves changing, Lives changing

On Saturday, I reclined in the wicker chair on our porch, enjoying the sunny, beautiful, Atlanta Fall weather and reading a good book. Yet do you ever feel like it's hard to fully enjoy these moments? Your mind keeps running to things that you should be doing or what you need to get done today. I often feel like I'm "wasting time" when I am not fully productive. 

Then the One Thousand Gifts Devotional that I read that morning hits me: 

"Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away... Life is so urgent it necessitates living slow... Time to laugh long, time to give God glory and to rest deep and to sing joy." 

Every day this past week I have been watching how the leaves outside of our kitchen window change. Every day a little more green becomes red. It's stunning to awaken each morning to a noticeable difference from the day before. 

The view out of our kitchen window

This color change is continual, yet I don't notice the change throughout the day. It's only when I've stepped away and return to the window after overnight hours do I see the difference. 

How true this is for our lives. During a season we're in, it's hard to see the ongoing growth. It's only after you step back and examine the whole do you begin to notice the different shades appearing in your life. 

It's only in intervals of repose that we notice. 

The definition is telling: "Repose. Temporary rest from activity, excitement, or exertion; a state of peace; in art, a harmonious arrangement of colors and forms, providing a restful visual effect."

In intervals of temporary rest from excitement, we enter a peaceful state and are able to appreciate the arrangements of colors and forms in our own lives. 

What shades of your life are taking on new colors and forms that you can't recognize in your busyness? Are these transformations that you want but haven't taken the time to appreciate? Or are they changes toward an undesirable direction that have happened unintentionally? 

Take deliberate rest today to examine, notice, correct, and give gratitude for the beautiful colors in your life.