Someone I know once said, "Fall is the season where every leaf becomes a flower!" I'm not sure it is his original quote but I love it just the same. When the leaves begin to change, I take more deep breaths than any other time of year. I move slower, breathing in the aroma of rain on the wind, seek out the warmth of family, soup, and hot tea even more than usual.
For many I know it is a very challenging season, full of painful memories of vile attack on body, mind, and spirit. They know who they are and I pray they know I stand with them in intercession for healing, that they know someone is witness to their pain before the throne of God. Still I cannot help this being my favorite season and I pray for the redemptive salve of a restoring Savior to infiltrate their pain and help them see the beauty I see in both them and this season.
I find it ironic that leaves become their most beautiful just before they are to leave the land of the living, providing sustenance to the soil for the next year. It is such an example of the requirement Jesus places on His brothers and sisters to die to self so that one might live completely and WHOLE in Him. The journey of healing from complex trauma is so much more a time of Fall and Winter than one would imagine without the experience of entering into such a journey. It can be just as painful as the events themselves that brought the necessity for healing in the first place, yet, it is full of other stuff too....spurts of life, laughter, the release of tears pent up and held back far too long! It is life giving pain instead of the life stealing kind we complex trauma survivors have believed is our lot in life.
I met my husband anew on this journey, finding in him to be the companion my heart longed for as he faithfully walked an arduous journey to reclaim his wife's mind, putting a stop to the resounding echoes of the past. I lost many I trusted and gained others more capable of holding my heart safely. I became one more capable of holding another's heart safely.
The biggest surprise though, was this God I thought I knew but found the knowing to be barely attained in the many years before. I found His eyes loving, His tone gentle, His embrace of the grandest comfort. I found my true Daddy. I met Jesus anew too, I found him to be a faithful brother and the Great Lion that roared against the injustice of it all while simultaneously meeting me in all the dark places. I found the effervescent material that makes up the Holy Spirit to be kind, wrapping love in and out, all around purely without expectation or need from me, but with just a desire to be comforter and teacher. I found the Trinity and in the space where I am always able to connect to them, it is eternally Fall.
