An ode to autumn.

Every year, it happens. Women everywhere greet fall like it's the first time it has ever appeared. We trade in our sandals for boots and our sunglasses for scarves. Pumpkin paraphernalia fills the grocery stores. Your house either smells like spiced candles or toasted pumpkin seeds. (Right now, mine smells like both.) Social media is soaked with #pumpkinspicelattes and family pictures from the corn maze. People love fall. I love fall. 

The obvious reasons for this adoration come to mind, like football and candy corn and the kickoff (pun intended) to the holiday season. But today, as my brown boots crunched bright, yellow leaves on the sidewalk, I realized why fall is so especially lovely to me. 

Summer ends and it's a sad thing, especially if you reside in the northwest. Those three months provide the most beautiful, dry, sunny and enjoyable season of our year. Around this time, we say goodbye to the sun until May and a gray blanket covers the sky for months. Luckily, fall eases us in to that. The air turns crisp overnight, trees explode with color and fog gets caught up in the trees. It's beautiful! 

Fall gives us a little glimmer of beauty as summer dies right before our eyes. Our gardens die, but the sparkling layer of frost over the grass appears. Lush, green trees die a slow, colorful death and brighten up our rainy days. 

A month ago, Matt stood at a podium next to his aunt's coffin during her funeral and prayed a hopeful prayer about the life God offers to us, through his death. Meanwhile, our sweet four-month-old sat on my lap sucking his fingers so loudly I almost slipped out to the lobby. After the service, a frail, older woman with tears in her eyes grabbed my arm and smiled. She told me that hearing the sounds of a new baby during a funeral gave her perspective on death. It was beautiful, she said.

Beauty in death. That has the gospel written all over it. It might seem like a stretch, but I think the beauty of fall is hopeful and gospel-like. 

So with fingerless gloves, I raise my mug of cider to you, fall. You make the death of summer so beautiful. Cheers.