Fall 🍃 “First Days” … They’re Not Just for the Youngin’s Anymore

How does the weather know that the calendar has flipped to September?  You might as well close the pool and put away your shorts. Like clockwork as soon as the sun goes down on Labor Day, you walk the dog the next morning and you need your windbreaker.  The nature sounds are different. The sunrise looks different.  The air even feels different.  

With school buses intersecting the morning commute. (I know, not one of our favorite things:(  The leaves peeking out their first hints of red and yellow.  Soup all of a sudden tasting good and pumpkin spice lattes back on the menu at Starbucks again. Fall is here!  

Whose heart doesn’t melt lining up the youngsters with their new backpacks, fresh outfits, washed faces and tidy haircuts to take those “first day of school" pics? 

So many “first days of” for our kids … their first day of school, first day of football or ballet, first night of Bible Club; an endless array of exciting new possibilities; visible doors to ways they are growing and new things God has in store for them to become in the year ahead.  

Driving through the carpool lane, we kiss them on the forehead waving with a big smile to “Have a great day Sweetie” as they run off to exciting vistas ahead.  

Let’s not forget as we drive off to our adult lives, it’s also the season of our “first days of” as well. 

Just because there may be a little more sand on the bottom of our hour-glass than the top, doesn’t mean those days are gone for us.

I was visiting with a friend a few days ago when this hit me.  Talking about finishing my book proposal and how many steps there still are ahead. She said, “But if you stop and think about a year ago, you’d probably be amazed at how much you’ve grown since then.”  

Pausing, I gasped, “Oh my goodness!  A year ago I hadn’t even gone to to my first writing conference. I was walking with a spiritual giant, writing as I went. I registered for the writer’s conference thinking I’d just start dipping my toes in the water. Surely, it would be years before I would enter the real ‘writer’s world’, if ever. I had no idea the delightful ride God had just around the corner.  The people and growth from then to now has been exponential, mind-bogging in the most glorious way. I can’t even believe I’m here!”

We take those first day of school pics of our kids “oohing” and “awe-ing" about how cute they are and how much they’ve grown.  No doubt about it.  

But what about you?  

Take a minute to think about your cute self a year ago.  How much have you grown and what would two pictures of you look like held up side-by-side; one from today and one a year ago? 

The new beginnings of fall are also a time of fresh growth and exciting open doors from our heavenly Father for us.  His plans and new horizons in the year ahead are no different for those in the “more mature” category than for the young ones. 

We just need children’s eyes to see them. 

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What “First Days" do you have an inkling God has placed before you this Fall 🍃 ?