New Season
I love autumn. I love the back-to-school, start of something new, productive energy of the season. By this time, I’m craving structure and some predictability to the schedule that fall naturally brings. There is a sense in the literal air that change is coming, and I welcome it with hopeful anticipation.
I make my fall bucket lists: bonfires…hiking…pumpkins… apple picking…fall farms…and all the fall scents my nostrils can handle! I think about my kids’ development as they launch to another grade. I marvel at their growth and whisper prayers of surrender to what the Lord brings into their journeys this year.
My transition into a new season resounds with positivity and hope, but only because my family and I enjoy a stable home with enough resources to meet our daily needs. We live in a home that does its best to foster love and belonging. Part of the fruit of this is the privilege to look forward with hope.
But what about when the transition to autumn takes a completely different face? What about the oh so many children beginning the academic year at a new house because over the summer they entered the custody of the state? What about the young man still waiting to be adopted, whose start of the next grade just means one more school year he begins without a permanent family? What about the kinship aunt, who took in 3 family members over the summer and now has to figure out before and after school care plus how she’s going to make the budget work? What about the newborn who now faces the confusion of unfamiliar scents and sounds absent from the voice she’s attached to those 9 months in the womb?
Dear friends, in this new season, the need still exists.
Renewed Vision
Therefore, amidst our anticipation to do all the favorites this fall can bring, we must renew our vision towards the fatherless. For many children in our midst, this season just means a continuation of an already arduous story. Where we charge ahead with hopeful intentions, they may find even a thread of hope hard to grasp. Questions abound. Cycles of grief keep circling.
We must renew our vision and be willing to disrupt this narrative with the fruit of the Gospel.
In this new season, won’t you join us?