Fall is traditionally my favorite season. Its crisp leaves and cool air combine to make it a time I want to linger on indefinitely. This one is half-gone and I’ve kind of missed it.

At least that’s what I thought before I took a look back.

I haven’t missed anything. There’s been life and learning, grace and every kind of good gift. I just needed to turn around and open my eyes. A regular recounting of the gifts and graces, the lessons and the stuff of life keeps me a little more light-hearted and grateful than when I move through life on autopilot.

A quick look back often clears the way for good forward movement. Care to join me? (I’d love to hear what you see.)

Gifts and Graces:

• Long evenings. Because candles.
• Wood heat. Because the ambiance of fire.
• Daylight savings. Sunlight in the morning—or lack thereof—impacts the whole day.
• Fleece sheets. They instantly transform the bed from a place I have to warm up to one that warms me.
• Grace, both from God and from people.
• Boots. The pretty kind.
• Boots. The warm kind.
• Doctors, dentists, emergency rooms and insurance. Between the concussions, weird stomach ailments, and sudden jaw displacement we’ve experienced this fall, I am grateful—again—for the many means God uses to heal us.
• Farmers and the work they do that produces the food that ends up on my table every day.

Learning:

• Those things that stress me out? Generally, they resolve themselves within a month. It’s true. I’ve been using Lara Casey’s Power Sheets for the past couple of years to set my goals and fine tune the actions steps. (And, incidentally, making more progress on them than I have in the past.) One step in the process is to make a quick list of all the stressors, worries, and concerns that are taking up brain space. Recently, I realized that the list was completely different every time. All those things that felt like they might be the end of me had come to some kind of resolution over the course of a month. Seeing this on paper has helped me take a better perspective on them and made them sit a little less heavily on my shoulders.
• The only way to keep a fire going is through regular attention. Like a person, a relationship, a project, or a practice that we want to grow and thrive, it needs to be encouraged and fed.
• People in the Christian writing community are generous. I attended my first writers’ conference in fifteen years at the end of September. The people I met have been helpful and encouraging in all kinds of ways that I would never have expected.
• I am not a Charles Dickens fan. When I read David Copperfield, I thought it was just me, that I didn’t have the emotional fortitude for Dickens and the depressing lives of so many of his characters–especially poor David. When I forced my way through A Tale of Two Cities this fall, I acknowledged the truth: I don’t like Dickens. If I hadn’t wanted to read that particular book so badly, I would have quit. I persevered and am glad both to have done it and have it done. (To my Dickens-loving friends, I’m sorry. I feel a bit like a failure, but I’ll be putting my reading time in other places.)

Liking:

• Living the Season Well: Reclaiming Christmas, by Jody Collins. Jody’s book is an encouragement to bring our Christmas seasons back from the brink of chaos through a shift of mind and heart. An evangelical who’s benefitted from learning about the church year and the liturgy surrounding the Christmas season, Jody provides a little education along with practical advice to take steps to reclaim Christmas, one small step at a time.
• Tresta Payne. Something about her voice, her perspective, her earnest faith makes me wish we could chat. She’s currently my favorite writer on the internet.

Listening:

Show tunes. Lots of show tunes. My girls have discovered musicals and now the soundtrack of our life is a medley of Newsies!, Hello Dolly, The King and I, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera and a variety of others. Up next: Christmas music.

Looking:

Scripts, flames, and fairy lights. It’s the season for choosing the spring play, fire in the wood burner, and the companionable glow of white lights in my small, indoor forest.

Again, if you’d like to join me in recounting of the gifts and graces, the lessons and the stuff of life, I’d love to hear from you, either in the comments or via email. (And I’m really a better emailer than commenter, so don’t be shy. Use the contact tab on the navigation bar or the mail icon in the top right corner.)

Joining Emily P. Freeman and lots of other writers from around the web to share what we learned last fall.