The Leaves

It’s been busy in the Stoddard household recently. We’ve birthdays and practice and sickness and preparation and all kinds of stuff. The stuff that everyone knows and everyone endures and that leaves everyone tired and haggard at the end of the day. You walk around sometimes so busy and so consumed by what you are doing and you look up and say, “Man, what happened today.”

We’ve all been there. We’ve all been busy. We’ve all spent so much time working on something and wondered, where did the time go?

Today, I was worrying about my schedule. I was thinking about all the things that I need to do and the lack of time that I have to do it in. And then I stopped and looked out the window. I could see the most beautiful leaves. I saw red and yellow and orange. I saw wonderful color all around.

And then I stopped and thought to myself, how long have the leaves been like that? How long have the leaves been changing? Days? Weeks? Months? I honestly couldn’t tell you.

And that got me to thinking about priorities. Sometimes we spend more time looking at the worries of life than we do looking at the beauties of life. How many of us spend more time worried about different things: time, schedule, finances, whatever; than we do focusing upon the things that truly matter?

The laughter of a child. The joy of families gathering together in the time of the year. The spirit and life within our wonderful town? The grace of God? The leaves?

It is so easy to focus on things that are important, but not the most important. It is so easy to get consumed with the responsibilities of life than we can miss the very reason for life. We are here to live and love and to serve. We are not here to miss the point of living.

But, we get busy and we forget. I had a pastor that once told me, “Andy, if the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.” Sometimes we get so busy living life that we forget to actually live life.

Today, may each of us live life to the fullest. And may we notice the leaves.