"The time of the falling leaves has come again...How beautifully the leaves grow old! How full of light and color are their last days!" ~John Burroughs
In recent days my mountain nest has come alive with new colors, and even on the most dreary and rainy days the woods are illuminated with sun-like splashes of yellow and orange. How beautifully the leaves do grow old! Perhaps we could take some lessons from the leaves.
We live in a culture that is very youth-oriented. Numerous products appear almost daily on the market claiming to make us look younger. Advertisements abound for anti-wrinkle creams, vitamin supplements, and pills that boast about their ability to prevent aging. Lets face it, we are growing older each day. That's a fact of life, and no matter how hard we try to avoid the aging process, it's going to happen. No lotion or cream can stop it.
What a blessing it is to know God will sustain us even as we age! While our youth-focused culture may look past older people in favor of youth and physical attractiveness, God is always with us even as our gray hairs become more noticeable each day. He sees our inward beauty, not our outward appearance. And unlike the physical aging process, when we age spiritually, we only grow more beautiful in our faith. When we cultivate inward beauty, our faces will glow with the peace and contentment that comes only through having a personal relationship with our Heavenly Father. When we adorn ourselves with quiet and gentle spirits, that are of great worth to Him, we will be much more beautiful than any cream or lotion could make us at any season of life, and even more so as we grow older.
As we enter the fall season of our lives and beyond, our faces will be radiant with His love, and our true beauty will shine as bright as the changing leaves in Autumn.
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