Here it is my 41st birthday, well actually just minutes away from being over. It was just a normal day, nothing unusual or special with the exception I got to spend the majority of it with my sons. Other than that, just another day. I guess that what happens when you get over 40. As always around my birthday I do a personal inventory of my life. I don't know why, but perhaps everyone does.
Having my birthday in the Autumn is quite fitting for me. Usually this time of year the leaves are changing from their color of life to their dormant hues of red, brown and yellows. The leaves are preparing to leave their source of life and will eventually fall gracefully in the air down to the earth never to be part of that life source again. After a season of lifelessness the tree will begin to bud new sprouts in which will be the beginning of many more leaves to provide shade, color and personality to it magnificent structure. It's the cycle of life.
In my forty one years I have gone through many cycles in my life of friends. In high school we make close friends that we have great experiences together and with the whole world ahead of us we feel like these friends that we have will be there forever. I look back and wonder where are they now? I have seen a few through the years and we have exchanged email addresses but we don't keep up. We go through the same things in different seasons of our lives, college, graduate school, different places of employments. I also can not forget the married then divorce cycle. After one becomes divorced most of the close married friends are no longer around , I was left to make new friends that are single.
It's just that way sometimes, we have friends for a season. The friendship begins as a small bud just getting to know each other. The bud of friendship begins to bloom over time because you nurture it, you feed it, you make an investment in it's beauty with the hopes that it will last a lifetime. An everlasting leaf of a beautiful friendship. Then the cool breeze begins to blow and the days become shorter and the dark nights begin to be longer and the sun begins sets on that friendship. You notice in the autumn sunlight that it is changing from the life color of green to a shade of brown. The beginning to an end. No matter how much I love that leaf, no matter how much I nurture it and care for it, it in return has nothing it can give back. It was there for only a season. Then cool breeze becomes a chilling wind and it's just a matter of time that the leaf will break away and float off with just the memories of it's beauty. My heart breaks and my tears fall as I see it float away, I want it back, it was part of me and I don't want to let go of it, I'm not the same with out it; but it has nothing to give in return and so despite the pain I feel it must go. So at the autumn twilight that leaf becomes smaller in smaller in the horizon till it is no longer in sight. What is left is the imprint that friendship leaf has left in my heart and memory. The beauty of that leaf remains in my soul.
The "what ifs" begin to cloud my mind as leaf of friendship is no longer in sight. Yet in my mind I know that no matter how much I cared for that leaf it was ready to leave. I could of pour more and more of my life into that leaf yet no matter how much I gave to it had nothing to give in return. It was a friendship for a season.
So as Autumn continues it's place in the seasons, so will my life's Autumn. Then there is life's Winter where I may just lay dormant for a season, resting to get energy for the spring of my life where there are hopes of new buds of friendships to occur.
Being 41 is not so bad, it just means that I have more seasons of life ahead of me and I've grown because of the seasons behind me. There are those leaves of friendship that drifted away that have left an empty place in my heart. In my remaining years ahead I must accept, however difficult it is, that there will be more friends and maybe only for a season.
"Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever;
wisdom and power are his.
21 He changes times and seasons;
he sets up kings and deposes them.
He gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to the discerning.
22 He reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what lies in darkness,
and light dwells with him.
(Daniel 2:20b-22 NIV.)
