Fall came to us lovely and slow, color wandering in like an old friend, gentle and golden.

We went to the mountains and tried to take it in, God whispering to our souls through the glories of His handiwork. The world a blanket of beauty, all the layers a delight. The sun reaching us through dappled trees, leaving us awed and humbled and joy-filled.

And I love how God made the dying of leaves such a wonder.

Now they are falling, hushed color floating down through graying skies.

The days have turned cold and the color is fading. This annual shift is still an effort for me–warm to cold, long days to short, outside to in. Sitting in front of a fire instead of watching fireflies on the deck.

My heart stays hungry for familiar and safe and quiet, searching for joy in change. Clinging to peace in the gritty weariness of this world we live in. I’m thankful that God renews and comforts and is faithful through all life’s changes, large and small. Through seasons and times, shifts and directions, He is the same.

No matter the tossing or the tearing, He is who He has been and always will be.

And on this Thanksgiving week, I gather all the traces of gratefulness. I try to verbally praise him for the thousands of blessings that are mine. I try to name all of the good gifts, those in my hand and those yet to come. Those I no longer hold. Every beauty, every delight, every comfort. Every cherished one.

But even as I begin, I know that I cannot begin to capture it all. So much of what I have is not seen or even known. My past, my present, my future–all lovingly planned and certain. All wrapped up in God’s eternal, never-changing character.

My best blessings all wrapped up in the graces of who He is.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Psalm 90:2

Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end. Psalm 102:25-27