beautiful mess

when our colors start changing

I was afraid they would take over our living room, but so far it’s been okay.

About a hundred tomatoes are growing in two pots next to the couch (and a hundred more in two other pots that are growing in the basement) because the nights started getting too cold to leave them out there but they were still too small to harvest, just tiny green clusters that looked like grapes. So we pushed them up against the window where they could get twelve hours of daylight in the safety of a frost-free environment.

I was also afraid that bugs would crawl out of the pots and start emerging everywhere, but so far there’s just been one little spider who built an ambitious web among the branches. For a while I let him, thinking that if there was a fruit fly problem, he would help mitigate it. But then he got presumptuous and expanded his architecture into a grand multi-dimensional Taj Ma-spiderweb that made me nervous, so I gave him an eviction notice and dusted him out of there so I could reach the growing tomatoes.

Because lo and behold, it’s working; they are changing colors. We are growing ripe tomatoes in our house. YAY. Almost a dozen are ready to be picked, and all I need now is some feta.

Fall is magical and idyllic: the colors, the sunlight, the new books, the new ambitions. Cham’s in the library rocking chair and Kav’s on the floor nearby, both reading. I’m almost done with Anne of Green Gables (which is perfect for fall) and all of Anne’s studies and concerts and recitations make me daydream about homeschool co-ops and reading groups.

Several packages of books came in the mail this week – some for the new school year, and others of our own to replenish inventory – and I’m listening to a teaching in my office while I reshelve everything. The speaker starts interceding for different cities and suddenly I don’t know why but I’m crying – and why am I crying so much lately? I’ve never been a crier, but God is changing my colors here, too, because it’s happening more and more during worship…and He’s teaching me that worship looks like a lot of different things, and most of them aren’t related to music or singing.

I know I’m rambling a little, but this is what fall is: Oh, look at that tree, and that tree, and that one. Look at all the things that are demanding our attention in new ways, all because their colors are changing.

Why do we buy, or borrow, or read all the books? Because we want something inside them to change something inside of us. We know we need our colors to change, too.

We don’t usually mind changing as long as we’re in charge of the process, or it’s gentle enough that we barely notice. But the change we most often need requires our surrender, and that’s when we dig our heels in.

A few years ago we finally made a lot of big changes after months (years) of prayer – we shed some friends, a church, a couple social media accounts – and life has been adjusting with new colors ever since. And in this season, more colors keep changing: Kids keep coming and going, another one is probably moving out next spring, two others need to transition into guardianship…and that’s one of those things where in some ways nothing changes, but in other ways, everything changes. The new colors don’t make sense and we have no idea what they’ll really look like.

Outside, most of the leaves are still hanging on tightly to branches and this is probably the last perfect week of fall before they all let go. We still have a few sunflowers and poppies blooming, and I keep checking to see if any of the ones that bloomed earliest are ready to harvest for seeds yet, but no, they’re still not, even though their petals have been gone for months. They went from enchanting violets and lavenders and crimsons whose bold petals stretched outward in every direction to these compact, reclusive green pods, and nothing to show for the change in color.

Sometimes we go through this process, too, and we wonder what God is doing with us. I used to feel so vibrant and free, and now I don’t know what I’m doing. Am I still the same person, even? Why do I feel less instead of more?

External changes are hard enough, but personal change — like when you know God is calling you higher, closer, humbler, or bolder – is a whole other process of molting and metamorphosis. But who we are hasn’t really changed; we’re just becoming more us as we become more like Him…and still, sometimes we dig in our heels, not sure if we should cooperate. Not sure how it will turn out. Not sure what we’ll have to give up, or what we’ll have to pay.

And sometimes shame and pride come in, and we dig our heels in here, too. I know this isn’t working, but I don’t want to change because that means admitting I’ve been wrong. If I change, people will see the difference between who I’ve been and who I’ve needed to be, and the space between feels embarrassing…so I’d rather just stay here.

To make it harder, some people walk in feigned maturity and make it awkward or difficult for everyone else to grow. I’m talking about the ones who drag us back in shame to our past, or speak dread over our future, and say things like, “Oh, just wait till ______ happens [insert story of martyrdom that demands your reverence to boost the speaker’s ego]. You’ll think differently then.”

These ones did not truly mature past the level they brag about, but stalled out when their insecurities outweighed their surrender. I have a theory that these are the same people who complain about all their responsibilities and never having any free time from the comfort of their easy chair while watching TV in the evenings. (They probably shouldn’t say those things to homeschooling moms who are balancing the phone on one ear while checking math assignments, washing eggs, and stirring dinner on the stove.)

There’s no shame in changing colors and turning in the right direction. Maturity requires humility. Sanctification means we are constantly a work in progress, and it’s okay to be a beautiful mess.

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.

– 1 Timothy 4:12-15

The only ones who lord it over us are the ones who refused, staying in the old phases, clinging to their old colors and baby fuzz, convincing themselves that to be perpetually in one’s twenties (or thirties, or whatever) is the ideal of happiness because it means there was never anything in them that needed improved upon. And this is why there are so many middle-aged and elderly narcissists (who, ironically, raised younger generations of narcissists, too).

The prodigal wonders, If I change now, will I be ashamed and embarrassed later of who I was, when who I am now becomes who I used to be?

– Oh My Soul

But what an amazing, holy, beautiful thing it is to allow God to change your color. We’re afraid it will take over our safe spaces…and it will. But it’ll be okay. The Lord is a strong tower; we can run to Him and be safe.

We have all these spring chicks who are almost adults now, and none of them resemble what they looked like before their feathers came in. They lost stripes, added speckles, and changed colors all over. Watching them over the summer has been a constant process of re-acquaintance as they’ve changed so fast – Oh, it’s you, Freckles. Last week you were brown with stripes, and now you are fifteen shades of chestnut, copper, and mahogany, with a gorgeous green tail that looks…suspiciously… like a rooster’s.

It turns out he is a rooster, but he’s my favorite and we’re keeping him, so there. He’s ginormous and still growing.

And those tight-fisted green pods of poppies are each growing hundreds of seeds that will reproduce themselves next year. They’ll let go, soon, too – I’ll know when I can see little windows open up at the tops of them that let the wind blow through.

One flower’s worth of lavender or crimson or violet will bear a field’s worth of color. They aren’t dying; we’re not dying. We are reproducing, replicating, propagating, spreading His colors into fields we could never reach now, far into the years ahead.