Note: On Tuesdays and some Sundays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
It is perhaps the most challenging time of the year. The days are short, and will be getting shorter still for the next month. While we’ve had a pleasant reprieve the past few weeks, we are certain the cold is coming. In winter, we hold fast to the knowledge that spring is coming. In fall, we hold fast to the 
knowledge that… winter is coming. That the craziest weeks of overbooking, stress, and exhaustion are coming. That we are likely to cut short our prayer practice because all this other stuff is coming.
It was one of the most challenging times of my teen years. My “best friend” had encouraged me to break up with my boyfriend… and they promptly began dating. There was a lot going on at home. I’d stopped going to church, and no one seemed to notice. And yet—when I recently encountered a schoolmate I hadn’t seen for forty-plus years, that wasn’t the focus of our conversation. We talked about where we’d been since then and where we are today: relationships begun in hope and ended in ashes. New relationships born. Less than fulfilling jobs, and jobs that challenged our skills and provided meaningful work. Where we’d failed… and where we’d succeeded. Little of it had turned out as we were certain it would be during that challenging season.
Perhaps it’s the same lesson Mark 13 shares with us today:
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
Things do change. We don’t often know how or when those changes will come; but we know they will, just as surely as fall follows summer and winter follows fall. And we know that if we hold fast to the Lord, we can persevere through it all.
