The Mystery Of Turning

The Mystery of Turning

I love to watch the seasons change. When summer’s edges bleed into fall, the days become shorter. The leaves turn amber and rust and brown, then let go altogether in showers of color-rich confetti. The temperature drops, making sweaters seem reasonable again. One evening very soon, I’m certain to step outside and smell smoke rising from a neighbor’s chimney. There’s a turning afoot, and it’s a wonder to behold.

Last week on my walk, a flock of birds flew past, so low I could hear the beating of their wings. And as if on cue, they changed direction—hundreds of them as one—moving east to west in a wide and graceful arc that took my breath away.

I’m turning too. In ways both seen and unseen, I’m becoming more of the woman God made me to be. I’m no more responsible for the good changes in my own soul than the leaves are for their glorious changes in hue. An invisible hand shapes us both, a hand that engineers every turning, from a season to a sigh; that makes possible every resurrection in every heart that ever beat.

God changes things. He changes us. When I forget that, my hope dies a little. But it needn’t. There’s enough evidence of turning in a single autumn afternoon to make me a believer for life. My God makes all things new. Sometimes the road to “new” runs through sorrow that looks permanent but is not. Sometimes the turning is a hard hairpin curve of repentance, pure and simple; other times it’s a gentle drift into deeper, more dependent love. Every time it is a gift—something to be treasured for its surprise, not dimmed by explanation.

Are you thinking of a change that is impossible? Think again. There is no change that God cannot effect—no matter how unlikely it may seem. The tomb is empty. The ultimate turning has been executed, and its echoes never end. The only wonder is that we’ve embraced it once and still question, day by day, if he could do it all again. He can. He will. Watch expectantly for the lovely mystery of turning.

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Ecclesiastes 11:5, NIV