WHISPERS OF HOPE

 

“Weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”  Psalms 30:5

I

t’s way too hot outside.  It has been for three or four months.  This is Texas, and that’s the way it is— summer for most of the year.  Not really, but it seems that way because what the heat doesn’t accomplish by quantity (meaning length of time here), it makes up for in quality. When I was a kid, even a forty-something, I could run for miles and conquer Six Flags with the best of them, but a few years ago (and by a “few” years, we’re talking twenty-ish of them), some heretofore veiled eyes sprang open and I realized how very, very foolish I had been to think that all those years of cavorting in the July sun were something that any sane person might call fun. I got sick and tired of all that fun a while back, and frankly, I’m pretty much done loving summer, at least in this Lone Star state I so proudly belong to.

            BUT (and aren’t you relieved to see that little conjunction right when you thought my heat delirium had robbed me of all ability to be positive and inspirational?) it is September, and so I can now shed my garments of disgruntlement,  put back on my peace and joy outfit, and venture valiantly out into the world, even though today the thermometer still  reads 100 degrees.

            I love September.  There are all kinds of reasons. It is the hopeful harbinger of autumn.  It conjures up in my memory schoolgirl days (okay, school-tomboy days) when my mother would take us to Shreveport to do our school-clothes shopping.  I recall fall-colored pleated, plaid wool skirts with matching sweaters, penny loafers and socks. (This was in the fifties when girls had to wear this kind of stuff.  My heart was set on jeans and t-shirts, but nobody would listen when I told them I had a vision that one day everybody would be wearing them.  They scoffed my prophecies and stuck to their guns.) On this annual shopping trip, my mother, sister, and I would go to Morrison’s Cafeteria where they served Jello cut up into blocks and tall, green drinks, probably just Kool Aid, but because we were in Louisiana that day and not Texas, I knew this had to be some far more exotic elixir.

          Fall meant band practice, and marching on the football field.  One random fall day, the cool breezes would make their way into East Texas.  Soon the chinaberry trees would turn yellow like gypsys’ petticoats exposing themselves garishly amidst the evergreens, people would bring their blankets to the football games, and everyone would get fiercely competitive about their chili. There would be hayrides and trick-or-treating and bobbing for apples and cakewalks.

            September has a different voice than the summer.  It is quieter somehow.  It is as though nature has packed up its loud summer toys and is whispering— even in the remaining warm winds still hanging on— that relief is just around the corner.  It foreshadows the autumnal promise of the deep breath of refreshment we get to take in and savor before winter blows in and takes it away.

            (And besides all this, finally a month with an “r” has arrived, and we can cast all caution to the wind and enjoy our oysters again with no trepidation!)

            So in any respect, if your night of weeping has lasted so long that your eyes have lost their light and you can’t imagine a morning of joy; if you are famished from the heat, weary and dry from a summer that has been too long, close to despairing that things will always be the way they are now, and refreshment and relief will never come, take heart! September has arrived at last.

 Listen to what the winds are whispering: God will not leave us in the darkness; He has not abandoned us to the desert. He is right this moment stirring up some yellows and oranges to pour over the aspens and brighten the parched landscape.

 And when He finishes that, He’ll stir up some warm apple cider and maybe even some egg nog! Oh, and oysters!  Let’s not forget the oysters!