I’m just delighted to be living, to be able to have a simple conversation, to feel a ray of sunlight on my skin and listen to the breeze move through the leaves of a tree. – Ryuichi Sakamoto

I love the fresh air. Maybe it is rooted in my childhood walking the hills and the seafront in the south of England, or maybe it is just the fact that cool invigorating days are healthy and good for the soul anyway you look at them.

Regardless, yesterday was absolutely an “open the doors wide, let the air in and breathe deeply” kind of a day. Sunny, cool, refreshing, breezy. Everything you want. Today looks to be more of the same.

So my morning walks with Max have been just perfect. Then feeling the cool air move through the kitchen while I am making coffee. And waking Rebekah – just a little earlier than usual – welcoming this day together as the sun pours through the windows and doors along with the coolness.

Breakfast, devotions together, then walking with Rebekah – carrying her books the short half block to our church where she is leading the women’s Wednesday morning Bible study.

It is such a great privilege for both of us, even after Rebekah is no longer the pastor here, to be able to teach these Bible studies and to feel so connected to the spiritual heart of this congregation. We hope that, when the search team finds the next installed pastor, we will still be able to help in this small way.

So, any excuse to be outside, Max and I walked the immediate neighborhood several times during the day, enjoying the splash of sunlight through the trees, the crunch of leaves beneath our feet, the freshness that blows constantly when the high barely makes the low seventies.

I even took my laptop out onto the porch, crafting a few pages of my new book while Rebekah works on some refinishing. The perfect day to enjoy everything that makes October in North Carolina so exactly right.

We can’t feel the breeze if the door is not open:

This breeze, this invigorating life that blows through the house on a lovely cool fall day, it reminds me of the refreshment that comes from the Good News.

It’s not that everything has to be smooth and easy and problem-free before we can feel this lightness of spirit… but that when we open the doors and breathe in with a grateful heart, then we feel the breeze of grace and our hearts are lifted.

I can testify to the truth of that. God’s way is not to make the challenges disappear but to fill our hearts with the breeze of the Spirit, with light and with love. For that, we must have the door open.

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” – Ezekiel 36:25-26

God’s way is not to make the challenges disappear but to fill our hearts with the breeze of the Spirit, with light and with love. For that, we must have the door open.