Hopeful Creation

So we’re back home for about a month…a couple of weeks…an undetermined number of days.  I woke up this morning feeling strangely like I’m on vacation.  Must be the result of sleeping in my own bed for a change.  I could have stayed under those covers for much longer, but the sun comes up an hour earlier now, and so does our rooster (aka Isaiah).

This rooster requested pancakes for breakfast.  Fortunately, I saw it coming and made the batter the night before.  Pancakes are essential to Isaiah’s “settled in” feeling.  He rates our many “homes” by the frequency he gets pancakes for breakfast.  According to his Sunday School teacher, they figure into his top six things to be thankful for—falling right after “motorcycles” and right before “his sister”.  Actually, I was quite surprised Claire made in the top 100.

It being the gorgeous autumn day that it was, Claire’s and Isaiah’s PhyEd teacher determined class would be held at Holliday Lake State Park.  This park boasts a 6+ mile trail around the lake, and each time we visit we try to hike a little further than we did before.  I estimate we walked 3 miles this time, and with minimal complaining about tired legs.  I’d like to say that our kids’ appreciation of the great outdoors kept them going, but it was probably the snacks.

The trail was ankle deep in crunchy oak leaves so any wildlife we might have seen heard us coming a mile away.  Undeterred, Isaiah stuffed his pockets with acorns of various sizes and Claire adopted a pet rock.  The said pet accompanied us on our hike for a lot longer than I would have guessed, until it decided it would rather take a swim in the lake.  According to Claire, rock is currently looking for its baby rock on the bottom of Lake Holliday.

The teacher in me can’t help but point out how all the plants and trees are letting go of their babies…or seeds and getting ready for winter.  We find berries, acorns and pods of various sizes.  These seeds will fall to the ground, get covered by dead leaves, and hopefully rise up to new life in the Spring.  The browns and golds of dying leaves and plants dominate the landscape we see right now.  But there is hope for new life yet to come.

“…with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay….We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”

--Romans 8:20b-21,23b

Maybe that’s why I love autumn so much….