October 2022 Newsletter

Hello!

Good day all! The weather is turning cooler. Soon it will be fall, in fact yesterday was the first official day of fall. The leaves will change and fall from the trees. I remember one year it snowed on October 3rd . I do not think that will happen this year. But snow will come. The turning of the seasons is something very important to me. I cannot imagine living in a part of the world that does not have distinct seasons.

The seasons give me something to look forward to and something to define memories by. I remember shoveling snow from our backyard sidewalk when Sam was about 12 years old. We were shoveling so that he would have a pile of snow in the middle of the yard where he could make a fort. I remember raking leaves in the front yard at Northfield. I was very pregnant with Sam, and the girls wanted a leaf pile to jump in.

I wonder how God sees the seasons. God sees all of the world and the climate is varied, so does God mark time by what is happening globally among the nations? Does God divide time by wars? Or peaceful times? Or social movements? Those are also varied. While it may be peaceful in one part of the world, another part may be warring. While it is summer in one part of the world, it is winter elsewhere.

Does God mark time by when Jesus was on the earth with us and when Jesus will come again? Perhaps. God has the ability to see globally and specifically. When I go for my walk today, I will feel the Spirit of God with me in the cool fall-like breeze. But I will know that God is also with the Ukrainian and Russian soldiers who are wishing the fighting would end in their part of the world.

However we mark time, however God marks time, our creator and loving parent is with us. Tom, my husband, served in the US Airforce. He was stationed in Belgium. It was during the Cold War. He guarded nuclear weapons. He had to dig foxholes and keep guard in them just like they did in World War II, except no one was shooting at him. He remembers the rain, the snow, the cold, wanting so badly to sleep but having to stay awake. It was winter. God was with him and God was with those soldiers in World War II.

Life is not perfect and there are seasons that are harder to endure, times in life of the nations of the world that are conflictual and tragic, but God is with us. God is with us. This is the Good News.