Today is the first day of September (okay today is the second day of September but I was going to post this yesterday but got a little distracted). Which means that fall is just 20 days away, or if you live in the dry smokey realm of Alberta where the trees are already turning colour…it already feels like it’s here. Fall is my favorite season for many reasons
and September is my favorite month for just as many reasons. Who doesn’t love getting to wear sweaters, cozy scarves, warm socks, and drink hot tea on those brisk fall mornings?
For me fall is also a season of change; not just physically but also emotionally. As any student will tell you, the emotional atmosphere changes drastically once summer ends and the new school year begins. Some people will argue that spring is the true season of change bringing with it beauty and life after the cold winter; and that fall is in fact the beginning of the end, the harbinger of the bareness that is winter, I disagree.
Fall is the time when you can start to look ahead, to plan what comes next, to map out 
your next great adventure. It’s a season of change and growth and learning and being open to the possibility of something new. It’s a chance for us to cool down after the excitement and heat of the summer. Fall offers us the opportunity to reflect on the changes that we need to bring about in our lives.
For me this fall marks the end of a hard summer and the beginning of something new. I don’t know what that “new” is yet, but I fully intend to embrace every single moment of it. September also marks the inception of a whole new self. Over the past months there have been so many parts of my identity that have been stripped away that the person that I’m left with now is completely and utterly confused as to who she is. So starting this month I am beginning to shape and create the person that I want to be. A cliched journey of self discovery if you will.
Everyone seems to go through some sort of existential crisis which leads to some sort of Eat, Pray, Love pilgrimage to find ones true self. While that sounds great and believe me I would love to be able to travel the world for a year, that’s just not in the realm of possibilities for me right now. Instead I’m choosing to start off this time of soul searching by focusing on exactly that…my soul.
Or to be more specific what strengthens my soul. Ever since I went to Bible College I have always been fascinated with spiritual disciplines and the rolls that they can play in our lives as Christians. And since there’s no time like the present, I have decided to tackle 4 of them:
- Meditation
- Worship/Prayer
- Silence
- Fasting
For each week in the month of September I will be focusing on one of the aforementioned disciplines. Then at the end of the week I will write about what it was like, what I learned, and how that particular discipline can be applied to our lives as Christians. Most of these disciplines I have either never attempted before or have only had limited experience with, so this could be a very interesting couple of weeks.
This September is the beginning of a whole new season in my life, and as the trees change colour to the point of almost being almost unrecognizable, I hope to do the same. To become someone more colourful and someone able to see the beauty in the change and look for the beginning in the ending.
Simply Katherina 