Lessons From Fall

Last Saturday I was standing in front of the Inman Park/Reynoldstown train station waiting for a friend to pick me up. As I was standing there, waiting, eating a slice of homemade pineapple upside-down cake from the hipster bakery across the street, I began to take notice of the beautiful fall day that was around me.

 It was a gray day, but just gray enough to make it fall-like and just sunny enough that I wasn't freezing in my tee. The air was perfect, warm with the perfect amount of humidity and the softest breeze. Some of the leaves on the nearby trees were changing color, some of the leaves were steadily being blown off of the trees, adding to the growing number mounting on the ground. As far as I could see, there were leaves littering the ground making for a picturesque fall day in Atlanta.

As I was standing there, waiting, I started to think about the act of waiting itself. I was standing there in no particular hurry because where I was going was not urgent or pressing. Also relinquishing any sense of hurry as I had no control of how long I would be standing there because I was essentially on someone else’s time table. But the thing was, I wasn't frustrated, or impatient or annoyed. I was just waiting. Waiting because there simply wasn't anything else for me to do.

As I stood there, waiting there, pondering there, suddenly aware that I’d somehow stumbled into sacred space I thought to myself, why is it so hard to apply these principles to God? Is it because there is not this overwhelming sense of indefinite-ness? There is finality & tangibility in the fact that I will at some point get picked up. Is it just in this moment that I’m feeling un-hurried and patient? And so in certain seasons, like with everything else in life it is easier to wait than others. Perhaps in that moment it was easy to wait because I knew exactly what I was waiting for-a ride from a friend.

Many times I find myself in a place of waiting and I have no idea what I’m even waiting for. Which seems to be the case right now…and as always….

It is less about knowing, and more about trusting.