Psalm 139:23,24 NIV
Autumn is my favorite season of the year. The heat of summer wafts away as cool breezes lift leaves from their branches and flutter them to the ground. Their chlorophyll has done its sugar- producing work; sweetness flows down to the tree roots to provide energy for winter. Now the leaves show their true colors.
Conifers, such as pines, shed their mature needles, now yellow and orange and gold, while the newer blue-green needles stay. Bald cypress turns to vivid brassiness, then drops its needles to carpet its knees. Gone are the pale green leaves of evergreen holly and laurel and magnolia: their leaves assume determined darker greens.
The stars of autumn colors are the broadleaf deciduous trees, especially the oaks and maples. We know some of their names because of their autumn leaf colors: scarlet oak, red maple. Now car-loads of leaf-peepers clog roads and highways through the Blue Ridge, Catoctins, Alleghenies, and upstate New York and New England mountains to gaze upon landscapes of trees garbed in stunning crimson, yellow, magenta, so many colors! After peak color, many deciduous trees immediately shed their colorful leaves, forming a protective carpet for undergrowth plants and animals. But other deciduous trees—oaks and beeches—are marcescent, clutching their fading leaves through most of winter, and providing wind-breaks for mammal and bird neighbors.
The disappearance of green chlorophyll also increases the visibility of holes, tears, and scars borne in the leaves.
Psalm 139:23,24 New International Version: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
God knows our gorgeous true colors, who we are under the “chlorophyll”. God knows the sweetness we have stored up in our roots, to draw upon for energy during tough times. God knows when we are pushed aside as we develop full maturity: there is more for us to do, additional purpose in God’s plan. God knows our ability to hang on through wintry winds: those of us who are “marcescent” and “evergreen” can be a shelter for others of God’s creatures. And, especially now, God sees the holes and tears and scars we bear in our deepest selves, even when we are masked by “chlorophyll” or hidden among “forests” of other people.
Prayer: Eternal Creator, as we consider the colors of autumn leaves, please help us remember Your love and care for each of us. We are comforted that You know our true colors, from the inside out. As we are physically separated from each other, please remind us that You use different, delightful ways to bring us together than we have experienced before. Autumn trees remind us that You will keep us occupied in Your service, in every part of our lives, until You come. Amen.