Dreary Wearies

It's my least favorite time of year. However, fall is my absolute favorite time of year! I love the fall colors, high school football, and all things pumpkin! I love watching the crop farmers harvest their crops for the year and school starting up to get back into a routine after a summer of no routine for the kids. I love the pumpkin patch and apple orchard trips. But now, now we are in the dreary weary time.

All the leaves are gone, the flowers are dead, it’s raining or at least cloudy all the time. The only color going on outside is brown and gray, maybe a bit of orange with the carved pumpkins that are waiting to be thrown out because they froze and are going to mush. And there’s no snow yet!

Saturday morning I looked out the window at the trees with no leaves and gray skies for a backdrop and said to my husband “UHG! It’s so blah out there now.” And he reminded me to “look for the positive.”

Yes it is dreary and well if we are being completely honest, it’s a rather depressing time of the year here in Northern Michigan. Especially now that it is dark from 5:30 pm til 7 am. But this time of year reminds me of the Bible verse: “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Psalm 30:5”

Having times of dreary wearies is normal once in a while. Having stages of life that are just blah is good. Because how would we know the joy in the morning if we didn’t know the weeping at night. Could we really grasp the joy of winning the battle if we didn’t have to fight through the battle? Would we truly understand joy, I mean real joy that comes after a night of weeping if we didn’t spend the night weeping.

I do not enjoy this time of year when everything seems so blah but I know the joy of that first morning I wake up with a beautiful blanket of snow on everything will be so joyful! Most likely here in Northern Michigan the sun will go down on a dreary rainy day and the sun will come up to a beautiful pure white winter wonderland. And the joy of that first snowfall is so much more full and real after a solid month of dreary weary weather. So I am thankful for the dreary weather because it is making the joy of the beautiful white stuff so much better!

And I am thankful for the times in life as a whole that are just blah, the everyday, boring, routine, maybe even depressing and sad times in life. Without the sad blah times in life would we really truly grasp the joy that comes with the new stage of life we don't even see coming ahead of us? Would we really truly enjoy the good days if we didn’t have to go through the bad days. Would we celebrate the victories if we didn’t have to fight the battle. Without the just blah times we wouldn’t understand the true joy of the good days, and the good days would quickly become blah ordinary days.

If you are in a stage of life right now that feels blah, dreary, or outright sad and depressing please hold on! Focus on the good that will come! The sun will rise on a new beautiful stage of life you don’t even see coming. Focus on the joy that you will know when you come out of this stage of life. It will change, it will get better, the battle will be won if you just keep holding fast to the One who created you and loves you and let God fight your battle with you.

So as you occasionally jump on this website to see what is happening at the leaning barn on 32, I hope you try to enjoy the blah brown and gray backdrop, because that first snowfall on the barn is going to be breathtaking! And we are all going to enjoy that day!