As much as I love autumn, come Labor Day, I begin to twitch. Now, as strange as that seems, it’s true. Even though I love everything about fall—the way the angle of the sun changes mid-August with fall just around the corning turning the grass in the field to seed, and how the tomatoes left on the vine may not ripen and will be this year’s crop of the finest fried green ones—it’s the transition that gets me.
Because while it may be roasting hot outside, it’s that crazy time of year when it’s no longer proper to wear the white of summer—the sandals, the clothing, and the open-toed shoes—things I’ve been told since I was a child. Fall is at the doorstep, and while we don all those lovely colors, eggplant purple and pumpkin orange, from the tops of our heads to even on our toes, at the same time, we are often enduring the sweltering heat of an Indian summer.
I’ve never done it gracefully. I’m either wearing something way too hot, that even when layers are peeled off, my face has taken on the color of a beet, or the temperature drops just a little too much and what I have on leaves me shivering. But while the reasons that cause me to end up in this conundrum are many, just about every time, I can narrow it down to my mom.
As Sandra Bullock says about her mother in the movie, Two Weeks Notice, “But for better or for worse she’s the voice in my head pushing me to do better.”
We all have them, whether it’s a parent or someone else—those people whose sage advice, or not so sage, sticks. Daily decisions are swayed affecting the most minuscule choices we make, and sometimes, if we don’t follow their experienced recommendations, become more like a circling gnat, nagging at the back of our minds.
Just the other day, I discarded a perfectly fine undergarment because some of the lace was too tattered to repair. What was playing in my head as I was juggling with “what-to-do,” was my mother’s voice giving me the classic suggestion to “make sure I was wearing clean underwear in case I was in a car wreck.” It was clean but didn’t look too good, so there it went. While this decision was not life-altering, it did make me pause, causing me to walk out the front door a few minutes later than planned, adding more crazy to an already packed day.
Why did I wrestle with something so seemingly insignificant? Because even though my sweet mama is no longer here on this earth, what she thought mattered. And out of love and respect, and maybe the teensiest bit of guilt (because what she was telling me seemed weird, silly, or outdated), I still try to honor her and do as she said. She loved me and wanted the best for me. Isn’t that what’s most important?
The same is true when it comes to the Bible. Some people think that things, especially in the Old Testament, seem to be irrelevant, but that’s not so. Laws concerning food, such as preparation and what is allowed for consumption, were given for our good. Tedious seeming instruction on everything from taking care of bodily functions to dealing with those who had passed on was given in extreme detail, for our good. The history of the Jewish people, their failings and triumphs are all there to teach us the benefit of following what God tells us. Most importantly though, their stumblings and failures, time after time, point to the truth we can’t possibly be holy, or perfect. We can’t get it right even on our best-of-days. That’s where the Good News comes in, the Good News of the Gospel, that God has provided Jesus to do just that in us-to give us His righteousness. To be loving, joyful, bringing peace, to be patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled: against such things, there is no law. (See Galatians 5:22, 23.) And when you ask Jesus into your heart, He comes in and begins the miraculous transformation that without Him would be impossible to obtain. We would have no hope. In Jesus though, we have every hope.
He takes us as we are. No frills, bells or whistles are needed. And truly… it doesn’t matter to Him if we wear white in the fall.
Happy almost autumn,
Kimberly
