Kristie Lynn Nelson
It’s the Start of the ghosts, the goblins, the skeletons, and the wandering spirits of those from the past. It’s when we send our children to the porches of our neighbor’s dwellings to collect treats from those, we hope we can trust. It’s a time for pumpkins, burning leaves, bon-fires, and hot apple cider. It’s the chance to stand behind a mask and pretend to be someone or something else other than yourself. It’s the time of year when the leaves are painted in burning red, blood orange, and candle glow gold. It’s the season of crisp cool air, warm wishes of thankfulness as the holiday gathering of friends and family begins. It is the part of the year when we begin to harvest and take pleasure in our comfort foods that fill our stomachs and warm our bones.
It is the rejuvenation of nature’s majestic beauty, when the leaves change, the ground hardens, and the old fades away so that the grace of a new beginning can start on the first spectacular spring day. It is the time when we plan for changes in our lives, leaving the past behind us and preparing for a year of newness. A new start, a new look, a new job, and a new mindset. We hope for a new country with a new president and a new ease of all our burdens.
It is truly one of the most inspiring times of the year. We somehow seem to find our faith in others as we send our children to their doors. We suddenly feel a need to express our thankfulness for what we have. We express our love and best wishes to all those we love and even to those we don’t know. We give gifts to our loved ones, our co-workers, and our friends all in the spirit of giving.
Yet, somehow throughout all of this, somewhere along the years’ time, we forget those feelings and we become tense, angry, cynical people and sometimes even sad, frustrated, and resentful. You see, you can’t always hide
It can’t always be a picturesque painting of glorious colors cascading across your world or a dated time to give thanks and express your love, but if you make the effort, you can make every day of the year and for the rest of your life a day to give thanks and extend a loving sentiment to those around you.
We do not have to live in a politician’s world of negative cynicism or the devil’s world of evil and wrongdoing. We do not have to let the poisons on this earth destroy us and we do not need them to keep us going or to bring us some sort of peace of mind.
We can and should instead find our strength through the Lord. This may not be your choice, but it is mine. It is still possible to find peace within your soul and happiness in your heart every day of your life just by choosing to be the better person, by seeing the beauty in someone rather than the spoils, by realizing that we all have bad days and that none of us know each other’s story enough to judge one another.
We can all find glory in the decision to be thankful for what we have and not resentful for what we don’t. We can learn to forgive those that caused us any suffering and show them that we can move on and give them better than they gave us, let them see that we understand that two wrongs can never make a right.
We can all make this world a better place to live, perhaps not with physical earth moving change, but with personal, life-altering change and a new vision and outlook on the life we have yet to live.
I choose to live on this earth enjoying all of the beauty that surrounds me, the gloriousness God provided me, and I will not allow others to darken the doorstep to the world I am living in, but instead I will do my best to help others find a new light for their own doorway.
We can endure the ghost and the goblins and embrace the spirits from the past and we can learn to make the beauty of this time of year last a lifetime.
