New Fruit

Well, to be honest my favorite part of the year is gone now. The final Fall leaf has fallen, and the Christmas Decorations are down...well mostly (give me a break, I have three children...lol). I love the Fall...everything about it makes me happy. The start of a new school year, school supplies all shiny and new, the warm colors...orange, brown, gold, and deep red...the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg coming from the kitchen...its all so inviting. It makes me long to be at home, curled up with my favorite blanket, drinking a steaming cup of coffee (mostly creamer,of course), reading a good book. This past Fall was an especially wonderful season living in the country. It was incredible to gaze on God's creation without having to go anywhere. The leaves on the vines were perfect, I even saved the first crimson beauty in the pages of one of my cherished cookbooks.
I usually don't look forward to the new year, the crispness of January, the resolutions that I usually fail within the first few days of making them...but this year is different. I am looking forward to the fresh start. I am inspired to be more organized, to take some time to better myself spiritually and physically, and to be more like Christ. The vines out my kitchen window are perfectly pruned, lined up, positioned to begin producing the fruit they are created to produce. I want to be the same way. I want the old, dead parts of me to be pruned (gently please, Lord), and I want to be in the position for God to grow new fruit in me. Just like the vines, I want to be open, bare before the Lord, ready for Him to prune away all the clutter that keeps me from being who He wants me to be. I know there are so many things that God needs to change in me, and I know that He is the only one able to do it. I just want to be willing for Him to do in me what he needs to to produce kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control...

Psalm 139:23-24
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.