Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
there is no shadow of turning with Thee;
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
as Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.

I am grateful this morning for seasons. Not so much because I love the fall – which I do – but because they are there. Spring, summer, fall, winter – it is the constancy that speaks to me. In a world too often defined by chaos and half truth and deception and unreliability God gives us the solid rock of faithfulness. God gives us deep truths. God gives us life.

Summer and winter, and springtime and harvest; sun, moon, and stars in their courses above join with all nature in manifold witness to Thy great faithfulness, mercy, and love.

For me, leaves on the sidewalk make for one of the most evocative seasonal images. I can almost feel the cold dampness of an English November day when I kick my way through a pile of leaves – particularly wet ones! 1970, walking home from school in a light rain, forty-degrees and almost dark; literal drifts of leaves through the park then all along Wilton Road. Arriving at our house and hearing my Golden Retriever Lassie, right on cue, hit the fence at full speed – crash! – joyfully barking my name.

Forty-degrees in the English rain can get raw cold all the way through your jacket and shoes and into your bones. That’s when my mother would deploy hot tea or – if we were especially soaked through – Ribena (Ribena was a blackcurrant fruit concentrate she mixed with water and served hot).

Cold wet November days in England called for many of the simple joys that defined my childhood. Stomping through the leaves; playing soccer on a muddy field; rice pudding; baked beans on toast; long walks with Lassie; hot tea on a cold damp day; an open coal fire in the living room (anthracite); blustery hikes down by the seafront when the water is high and the waves are crashing.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow:
blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

All this from leaves on the sidewalk and the possibility of winter in the air.

Gratitude, not nostalgia

These are all good memories, poignant reminders that my parents and my brother and so many of my English connections are all gone.

But life only flows in one direction and I find that I am so deeply at peace and happier now than I have ever been, grateful that the images that come to mind when I walk through the leaves are all so positive and full with love.

There is a difference between wanting to wind the clock back and simply being thankful for the rich gift of yesterday. Nostalgia is fifty percent selective memory and fifty percent fabrication. A grateful heart, on the other hand, is not only rooted in reality but continues its focus into, and beyond, today.

Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
all I have needed Thy hand hath provided:
great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

God’s great faithfulness involves “new mercies,” and they are ours “morning by morning.”

Have an amazing weekend, friends, and I will see you in church tomorrow morning – DEREK