Ordinary people are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed. ~Scarecrow "The Land of Oz"

It's officially Indian Summer here in Indiana and probably going to up in the mid 70's by the end of the week. The trees are really changing, and it makes me breathe deeper when I walk outside. It also makes me want to walk through the woods or play in the leaves or have a bonfire or just sit outside and watch the stars with someone you don't have to explain yourself to. i love the fall. more and more every year. i think this year everything is especially poignant. I think i've gone through a lot of change, and a lot of self-discovery in the last 12 months, and i think to those that know me best, that's evident and i hope i'm actually showing those changes on the outside the way the trees are beginning to. The leaves come and go, but year after year- the trees go through this change. i think fall is a really great analogy for learning to be vulnerable. the more you reveal, the more beauty- true beauty that you can't just create somehow- the more it shows, and slowly you shed that outer exterior and allow yourself to be bare. And then winter comes and it's cold, and it's bitter cold sometimes, but you know that come spring, there's all this new growth- growth that wasn't there the spring before and you realize that all of this shedding of ourselves is ok, and that's what God wants even, it's all in allowing ourselves to become more like Him. I don't think we really look around enough to the things that we can learn from His creation.

I leave today for worship conference, so i'll be gone the rest of the week. for once i dont have any expectations. i just want to go and be for a few days. there's nothing better than leaving every distraction behind and just being in God's presence and actually focusing on that- for a while. Plus, it's fall and fall in Tennessee is beautiful.