I am a Maple Leaf

I'm a maple leaf.

Maple leaves change colors in the fall, much like many other leaves, but have you ever wondered why they turn such bright reds? In our study about living things this year, we discovered something scientists didn't know when I was learning about the changing leaves way back in The Dark Ages: maple leaves are stubborn. You see, maple leaves start getting all the same environmental cues that cooler weather is coming that the other tree leaves get, but a maple leaf holds on with 'both fists,' if you will, and continues to try to do its job. 

Despite the shorter days, regardless of the tree pulling resources away, and heedless of the cooler temperatures, the maple leaf keeps trying to do its job: photosynthesis. The maple leaf essentially says, "WAIT! NO, just one more minute... just one more day... hold on... I can..." While the leaf is striving to produce food for the tree, the tree has stopped receiving, having pulled the water and chlorophyll back into the roots and trunk to protect itself from the coming winter chill. The maple leaf fills with sugar and becomes the beautiful red colors we are used to seeing, finally dropping long after many other leaves have given up and taken their place in the cycle of life.

I am a maple leaf.
I get so stuck in whatever I have set my mind to that I often don't see all the signs around me that it is time to let go. Sometimes, that can look beautiful on the outside - much like the colors of the maple leaf - because we have a habit of putting hard work on a pedestal, don't we? But at the heart of the issue is the reality that I am striving for my own purposes and not the ones set before me by the Lord. I can usually tell this is happening well after I am entrenched in the ruts of my striving, because I will finally lift up my head, look around, and notice that no matter how hard I am trying at something, it is not fitting together, things are not working out.

I once read a book by Dr. Henry Cloud entitled, Necessary Endings. It opened my eyes to the changing seasons in life, the starts and stops, and the importance of each piece to the bigger picture. Not all things are good and worth holding onto. And not all good things are good indefinitely. Relationships change. Friendships fall by the wayside. We don't tend stay in one job our entire working career anymore, and most people don't live in the same house their entire lives. Things change. And we have to say "goodbye" frequently - to people we adore, to sports we participate in, to cities we have loved, to family pets we have cherished... all manner of good things come to an end. That is the way life is.

One thing I love about autumn is that it is a beautiful reminder that change can be beautiful. Spring brings beautiful change, sure, but autumn brings a stillness, and it points ahead to an impending harshness on the horizon that is the winter of life. But autumn gives us a warning; autumn says "hold tight to the moment, prepare for what is coming, but remember the beauty and joy as you move forward." Autumn gives us that opportunity to ponder, once again, the forward movement of life, the changes that are neither good nor bad, and the promise that after each season of difficulty is a season of growth.

The maple leaf that is resisting the changing season is still doing something it has been designed to do simply because it is not wanting to let go. Surely this is not wasted, though! Surely that extra sugar in the leaf is then used by the tree as the leaf falls to decay near the base of the trunk. As the winter comes and lays its chill and dampness on the surface of the ground, the sugary maple leaf decays and provides nutrients to the soil, thereby feeding the tree roots and many other living things that rely on the soil and the decaying leaves to survive the winter.

I am a maple leaf. 

I am stubborn, and I don't always know when to stop striving. And I pray that God will use my efforts even as He is teaching me how and when to let go.

While I am certain that the maple leaf was not an accidentally stubborn part of God's great creation, it is not without a lesson: know when to let go.