All Things New....

I can't help it, I love the four seasons that we experience here in the Midwest...but Spring and Fall are my favorites by far! What I love about them is they hold a hope, a promise of things new. The change in the weather we greet in the Springtime indicates an inevitable renewing of everything around me and it‘s one of the most joyous times of the year for me. It‘s when my garden begins to bloom with my bounty, my gifts…my fragrant rewards. My garden is a 3 season garden, so it is constantly renewing itself and it’s a joy to behold what flowers as well as what insects ultimately show themselves.

The changes I experience in the Fall bring the beautiful color change in the landscape that can be breathtakingly beautiful, but it also brings to me a familiar, yet new, routine for me and my family. Don’t get me wrong, Summertime is wonderful…I love spending each and every moment with my kids and my husband enjoy our free time and being as silly and as oblivious to the time as we’d like. But there’s a certain excitement I find in preparing for my children to start a new school year and getting the opportunity to meet their new teachers and friends.

What's also wonderful about the Fall is we tend to become more settled down into a daily routine that gives us comfort and stability. Summer seems to be a free for all which is wonderful for a short time, but right about now we start to crave the feelings we experience when we get to be renewed by the cooler days and crisper nights. When we start on the new adventures that school time often brings, it’s exciting to see what great new lessons and discoveries we’ll make about the world around us, as well as ourselves.

Also with Fall comes the television line up change. All my favorite shows come back on air (hopefully), along with brand new ones to be discovered. The big trend in television shows these days seems to be finding something old and rundown and making it new again. In one show, people search out and find old, broken down, rusty cars and proceed to rebuild them so that these junkers will run and look new again. Other shows are focused around rebuilding older houses to make them feel like they did when they were first constructed. A few years back there was a program that featured a new person each week that they preformed plastic surgery on to make them look like a new person. These types of shows focus on renewing or rebuilding things that are all based on a “material world“ view. Things like cars, houses and someone’s looks will last only a brief moment. The soul is the most important thing anyone can have made new. The condition of the soul will determine everything that matters. The condition of the soul is eternal and everlasting. Renew your soul!

Romans 6:4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

1 Peter 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

Hebrews 9:15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.