Savour beauty of autumn years

DO you ever feel like autumn? The progression of the seasons gives us a powerful illustration of the direction of our lives.

The spring of our lives — childhood, adolescence and early adulthood — full of life and energy, mistakes and learning.

Then summer — perhaps with a career taking off, roots going down into a place and community, a family growing up around you and eventually flying the nest — often marked by greater stability, wisdom, sorrow and maturity.

Then you begin to notice the leaves are changing colour and beginning to fall to the ground. Hair thinning, joints slowing, those endearing creases are definitely a little more wrinkle-like these days.

You notice that you spend as much time looking back to what was, as you do looking ahead to what is to come. Autumn has come and winter, when at last the final leaf falls to the ground, feels much closer than ever before.

It’s easy to resist, to live in denial, to tell ourselves that life begins at 60, or 70 (or 80). But Christian faith gives a perspective on the autumn years of life that is hopeful and joyful. Psalm 92 in the Bible says: “The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon; planted in the house of the Lord, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, ‘The Lord is upright; he is my Rock’.”

Because Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross, any who put their trust in him are given new life — his life at work in us. This new life enables us to still bear fruit in old age.

Autumn years, full of purpose and opportunity. And this new life enables us to look ahead to the winter of our own death, not with fear and uncertainty, but with hope and confidence.

I’ve recently read an excellent book by a retired Christian doctor, John Wyatt, called Final Lap. He helps us engage with the autumn years of life, and to make the very most of them.

Because, although the leaves may be falling away, the trees are never more beautiful than in autumn. That’s what I see when I look around at some of the autumn saints in our own church family — such beauty, life and joy — even while the leaves are falling to the ground.