I can feel the winds of change around me.  I am not just referring to the changes in the seasons.  Yesterday the leaves were magnificent.  The yellows are at their glowing stage so that when the sun hits them just in the right way they look like gold.  As the winds blew yesterday the leaves began to let go for their float to the ground.  The strength of the wind caused it to rain leaves of all colors creating a beautiful fall scene.  There was a nip in the air that had a cold edge to it, gentle at one moment, like a knife the next.  The signs of the change are all around.

            In my life I can see the changes as well.  Friday night was senior night at the football game.  I was proud to walk my daughter down the track as part of her last home game in the band.  It was gentle at one moment, and like a knife the next.  I chose the gentle as I pushed the knife, and the tears that came with it, to the back of my mind.  It was the first of the transition goodbyes she will make in the next few months.  I am sure that as the move away gets closer, my tears will surface and the pain of the knife will hurt as I release my first child.  Bittersweet.  Life season changes are like that.  It is time.  It is right.  But it will hurt.

            At work the winds are blowing as well.  The color of my job has faded somewhat, but where that will lead I do not know.  I feel as if I am a leaf awaiting my float to the next thing.  I have not let go as of yet, but the wind is pushing and getting ready to cut me loose.  I went to a writer’s conference yesterday and was inspired again to write.  I know that God has made a deposit into me.  He has given me words, as a gift.  I feel that he has much he wants me to share.  At the conference, I was able to make some great connections with other authors, some that know this industry inside and out.  I need that kind of friendship if I decide to launch into this new field.  One thing I did learn is that it is a gradual process.  There will not be a sudden shift from full time teaching to full time writing in the course of a couple of months.  It left me wondering what God is up to with me.  How he will transition and shift me into his next phase of my life.  His wind is blowing and, for now, I am hanging on to life as I know it.  But I feel it in my spirit that things are shifting.  How long that change will take I do not know months or…maybe years.  It is in these moments that I am grateful it is not my place to know or figure out or strive to make the changes coming my way.  It is my job to float and allow him to carry me in his winds of change.