This Time Last (Next) Year

If you're like me and prefer to hang on to summer for as long as possible...

And feel like all the pumpkin spice hype comes way too early and is, quite frankly, a little ridiculous...

And you don't put up any kind of fall decor, on your porch or anywhere, until at least October...

Then my apologies to you for this post, and please feel free to skip this altogether.  Because I'm going to go there...into the fall.

But actually I want to talk about last fall. 

 

Last fall we stayed at the cottage until the end of October.  This was unprecedented for us.  We had always closed up for the season by mid September at the latest, mostly because of the weather challenges associated with island living, and also because the place is not insulated.

But last fall we had no choice.  We were 'homeless' in KW, between the closing date of our house on Blythwood and the completion of our new build, our small house, on Sandra.  So we had to stay here.

I'll state the obvious.  We didn't mind.  In fact we didn't need too much convincing that, if we had to be 'homeless' anywhere we'd pick hunkering down and being at home at the cottage any day.  We thoroughly embraced the reality, and experienced a glorious September-October gift we'd never been given before.

We loved waking up and putting on the fire, and the challenge of keeping it stoked just right to stay cozy all day.  It was novel and fun to navigate our laundry around good drying days even when it got cooler, me feeling all virtuous for not running a dryer that long.  And the whole seasonal community gets so very quiet once the 'season' has ended...for most everyone else.  So. Very.  Quiet.  No human noise at all.  There might not even be a boat go by for days at a time.  Just.  Breathe.  That.  In.

But best of all was being right here in the midst of things as the colours changed.

And those misty mornings.

And the incredible reflections of glory upon glory.

Flat water and fall colours.  No words.

I'll state the other obvious.  We were in a season of transition and uncertainty.  The last little bits of building pragmatics, permits, dealing with various municipal offices all ended up being quite straightforward.  But this time last year, we did not know any of that. We were being told a finishing date of January 8th, and that sounded too far away.  We just weren't sure how it was all going to go, especially as we were now talking about winter months, and we needed someplace else to be by then. So the extended cottage stay wasn't entirely as serene internally as it was out on the water most mornings.

As the temperatures have dipped this week, and it's starting to feel like fall (sorry, but I said it), I can't help but dip into that psychological space of 'mood congruent memory.'  I remember how it was this time last year, how I felt, what I worried about.  And how things, in the end, turned out to be more than we could have ever asked for.

We love our new little house.  

We love the way it's laid out inside.  We love that everything's brand new.  We love where it's situated in the yard.  We love that our son and grandson have adjusted so well to our presence there, and love the close-yet-still-separate living arrangement this provides us.

It's all so much more wonderful than anything I worried might ruin in, when I was all wondering about it last fall.

Last night, down by the water, this came up.  The trust thing.  Because each new season brings its own challenges, uncertainties, ways things could go bad, and some of that is in the works right now.  As I move into this fall, fall 2025, there's reason to wonder how I might be looking back on it come August 2026.  And last night, as the sun was setting and the breeze was dying down, He asked me again.  "Do you trust Me?"

A wise counsellor of mine once said, 

"To the degree we trust in the faithfulness of God, 

to do what He's promised and be infinitely wise and loving 

to lead us through to the best He's planned for us, 

we will be able to know the kind of peace 

normally experienced when problems are resolved, 

even before they are."

We were talking about Paul's words to the Philippian church in his letter to them, and the phrase "peace that passes understanding" (4:7).  In other words, without trust it wouldn't really make sense to be chill.

"Do you trust Me?"

We won't be here as long this year, and that's okay too.  I am so grateful for last fall.  All of it.  The way we got to be here.  The way it pressed me into that deeper intimacy of trust.  

And I'm also okay with getting back to our sweet little house, and our incredible community of faith at Highview, and to seeing my grandkids in person, and tea on the porch with friends.  And to all that such a good God might deem to grace me with in the ebb and flow of life.

And next fall?  We'll see.