Autumn: The Season That I Fell in Love
Daily Word-09.26.18-Pastor Sheliah
I love the Autumn season! Maybe I always liked it – even as a little girl – but it was September of 1965 that made me really fall in love with this season!
You see it was then that Aaron Glenn Artt first asked me to “go out” with him! But, I have to admit that though I really wanted to date him, I wouldn’t – at first! I was a senior at Ouachita Parish High School in Monroe, Louisiana, and he was the big college man who had come to see his old high school football team play their first game of the year -The Jamboree – that cool fall evening.
Secretly, I’d had a “crush” on Glenn (or “Butch” as his family called him) for a couple of years - from when I was dating one of his good friends. But that evening when he asked me, I told him if he wanted to see me again, he’d have to show up at my church on Sunday morning! And – wonder of all wonders – he did!!
The next couple of months with the backdrop of the beautiful Autumn season, he courted me and made me fall in love with him. But the smells of autumn, the beautiful colors and the warmth of the season captured my heart as well. So, we were married the following autumn in November of 1966.
And ever since then, I get ridiculously sentimental and romantic whenever the trees are painted with God’s paint brush of brilliant color!
GOD LOVES AUTUMN!
I think Autumn is God’s favorite season as well! He loves Harvest Time! Everything He has ever done has been ultimately to restore mankind unto Himself – to bring the great Harvest into His Kingdom – to gather His own unto Himself! And we are living in the amazing days of the great Harvest!
What joy we have to be harvesters in His fields that are ripe and ready! “The Harvester isn’t waiting. He’s gathering in this grain that’s ripe for eternal life. Now the Sower is arm in arm with the Harvester, triumphant. That’s the truth of the saying, ‘This one sows, that one harvests.’ I sent you to harvest a field you never worked. Without lifting a finger, you have walked in on a field worked long and hard by others'” (John.4:36-38).
He admonishes us to “open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you!”
AUTUMN: TIME OF HARVEST
The beautiful time of Harvest – Autumn is upon us! In these Ozark Hills we are seeing the trees loaded with fruit as never before! Even those that appeared in the past to be dying now seem to be renewed and yielding multiplied produce! “The spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual” (1Corinthians.15:46).
“Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall …They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen. You, too, must be patient. Take courage, for the coming of the Lord is near” (James.5:7-8).
Don’t you just love the Autumn season? God does too! Let’s live Outrageously in this season – with patience and eager expectation of the Lord’s Harvest! ~Shelia Hart Artt
[PS – The painting was done by Aaron Glenn Artt, who has been my husband for almost 52-years now!]