Craig D. Lounsbrough

The soft scent of freshly fallen leaves tenderly permeated a forest ignited to a flaming brilliance with sizzling reds, burning oranges, and electric yellows. Yet in the midst of all of the riotous beauty the forest suddenly fell still and entirely silent. And in that moment it seemed that autumn paused in a sort of solemn reverence where it fondly recalled the leaves of summer that had set the stage for the glory of fall, while the slumber of winter would animate the buds of spring. And standing there I wondered if we should not take a moment to reflect on the fact that a season might be dark but it is only a chapter, never a story.

Success is not determined by how many times we cross the finish line. Rather, it’s determined by the amount of times that we return to the starting block because the failure to cross the finish line is unacceptable.

If I am swallowed up in the bowels of negativity, and if the world seems eternally dark and forever foreboding it is likely that I have recklessly abandoned any notion of thankfulness. It is entirely likely that I have set the whole of my mind on what I don’t have, constructed the essence of my attitude around what hasn’t worked, and fashioned a vision for my future on the cold corpses of the many dreams that died horrific deaths. Yet, if I dare to be thankful for the fact that what I do have will always outweigh what I don’t, that everything that didn’t work places me one step closer to that which will, and that the death of one dream creates a space for the birth of a greater one, negativity will perish, light will dawn, and I will never fall to any of these things again.

The lie is that our circumstances will always loom larger than any solution to those circumstances, and therefore our situation is (and will always be) our forever story. But God says that our circumstances will never be anything other than a fleeting footnote because He is our forever story.