The season is changing ... autumn has already arrived in Western New York regardless of the date on my kitchen calendar. The shadows are lengthening ... the sky has turned from summer blue to autumn gray ... geese fly over my yard and let me know that they are leaving. My girls have exchanged their pink lemonade for apple cider and tonight we are having vegetable soup for dinner. It's autumn ... whether my heart likes it or not.

Why do I dread winter so much? I am a beach girl at heart with an addiction to summer sunshine, iced tea with lemon and five dollar flip-flops. I find that my aversion to the season of snowstorms, icicles hanging from my roof line and down jackets has even sucked the life out of the glorious days of fall! Why do I do this to myself?! I long to believe with the Psalmist, that the Lord has caused "my lines to fall in pleasant places." (Psalm 16:6)

I am in a new season of life as well ... the season when my children begin to fly away with the birds of summer. Three gone ... and two to go. Although I don't look forward to the day when the beds stay made and I am only cooking dinner for two, I refuse to let the next season steal the joy of these days of lingering children. How I love hearing my girls visit at night as they share their secrets and their clothes! I love seeing their scribbled teen-age notes on the refrigerator door and their jackets flung on the back of the kitchen chairs. It will be the next season soon enough .. and for now ... I relish these days. I hope that you do, too.