Ozark Hills & the Grace of Octobers

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“The Vinedresser uses pruning shears, not a chain saw. He’s not going to work on everything all at once… He’s not going to teach you everything about himself. But something about who he is and what he says to you can make a decisive difference in some challenge you are facing right now.”

~ David Powlison, Speaking Truth in Love

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Good things in October:

Roller coasters, Ozark Hills, and a potato on a stick

Splitting a pumpkin iced coffee

“Bluey,” Honey Oh’s, and kids in jammies

Running creeks and real, live, majestic bison

Eating chicken salad on a rock by a waterfall

Vintage Paris coffee shop and an early morning hot air balloon on the far horizon

Beef jerky from Bass Pro

Hudson paddling a kayak twice his size around the cove

Jared’s new hat

Autumn touching the Ozarks

Sunset colors burning and cooling, then lights on the harbor waters after dark

Barrett “chopping wood” with a hatchet at the campsite

Strolling a college campus with an old, beautiful church, and whispering in the library

October tomatoes

The first cool afternoon and a spider weaving its web out my cracked window

Replacing recycled air conditioning with a fresh breeze from the window

The neighbor kids carrying their pet bunnies in backpacks down the street; dropping my groceries and running down the driveway to pet them

Sitting in the silence of a parked car

A boyfriend who lets me borrow his commentaries

An October bouquet from the garden: goldenrod and the last of the zinnias

Rolls of thunder before dawn

Raining leaves and golden light

My Frog & Toad sweatshirt

A girls trip to Branson in the rain; green and gold in the hills

A little village of shops, Sugar Leaf Cafe, and meeting the bookshop owners

“Esther” in live theater

Charlie’s cowboy hat and Bo’s smile

Sitting on a stone wall, watching the sun rise over the city lights in the valley, a checkered blanket to keep warm

Mist on the windshield and McDonald’s coffee and the “Little Women” soundtrack for the drive home

Playing Mrs. Barb’s violin to “Come Thou Fount” on Sunday morning

Seeing Susie singing through her tears

A Sunday evening for the loud, wild, costumed cousins

Trent’s mural of New York City

Kneading bread

Ben Rector’s “Old Friends” concert with the siblings, and three-part harmony to all our favorites

Playing schoolhouse with a crew of random kids at the pumpkin farm

Corn mazes and barrel rides and pedal tractors (and how the adults played harder than the kids)

“Front Porch” by Joy Williams

Coyote calls in the night

A bonfire for the girls and watching “Little Women” on a projector screen in the backyard

Conversations after church I didn’t know I needed

Baking scones and cookies all afternoon with Esther

Babysitting Barrett and Lila on the night the winds turned cold; playing “stick fight” till our fingers were numb and reading books after dark

How autumn doesn’t come all at once, but how the trees give in one-by-one— gold, copper, then a deepening red

How God is as gracious and patient as October in sanctifying me

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