welcoming fall.

the first day of fall was earlier this week. if you're wise enough not to be on facebook or instagram, you might have missed the MILLIONS of posts about pumpkin everything and everyone ready to move onto this next season.

my heart got more and more worked up about it.

until i finally decided to meet whatever it was HEAD ON.

i got some paint and oils and paper and a big cup of water (actually 2. one to drink. one to dip my brushes in.)

i turned on a song that's singing my heart lately, "I Choose Jesus". {go ahead and click on it and listen while you read. you won't be sorry.}

and i just created and prayed and cried.

and He met me. and showed me that my hesitation to embrace this new season comes from fear. from fear of the darkness it will bring. the last few years i've struggled during winter with depression...and darkness...and just feeling not myself for days on end. it's exhausting and draining and WAY more dramatic and "needy" than i prefer to be.

all my life i've woken up excited and ready for THAT DAY. full of hope and joy. i don't have to work at it. it's just there.

but in the winter? every day is work. a smile is usually forced.

i've ALWAYS loved LIGHT. i remember as a kid wanting to turn ALL the lights on all the time. my least favorite part of the day was late afternoon/early evening when the sun started to go down and things started to get dim. my heart would fall in my chest. it wasn't a FEAR of the DARK, it was a dread of the light ending. light pours into my heart and soul and makes me feel ALIVE.

i've lived enough life (and enough winters of this now) to know that it will end. that it's just FEELINGS. (don't jump all over me here. i KNOW depression sometimes requires medication and it's not "just feelings"...i'm using that term loosely to mean it's what I FEEL those days.) i KNOW that He and His love and His hope are not gone. they just don't feel as close during those dark days.  

but i laid all that at His feet. i choose Him. in the summer {oh, summer and your hours and hours of LIGHT,  how i love you!} in the fall. and even in the winter. He doesn't change. i am choosing to believe that it could be different this winter. but even if it isn't, He will be in it. and that's really all that my heart needs. i choose Jesus.