Autumn is my favorite season. We call it “fall” around here. Living in the rural community in Michigan where we experience four very different seasons, there is a thrill in the air when the temperatures cool at night, the trees begin to show their colors, and pumpkins and squash are at all the roadside stands.

It’s too early to fret about blizzards and icestorms.

If the heat is unbearable during a few hours in the day, we understand that cooler weather is right around the corner.

Gardeners are reaping the last of their harvest and preserving it for the winter.

The season is changing.

This summer I struggled with my mental health. With a medication adjustment, counseling from a Christian therapist, and the support of family and friends, I have come through the hardest season I’ve experienced since my original nervous breakdown and hospitalization in 2003.

The past few days I’ve wrestled with depression. Earlier tonight I cried on the phone with a friend over things that happened 30 years ago. (Thankfully I go to an appointment with my therapist tomorrow.)

Now that evening has settled and the house is quiet, I am remembering and meditating on truths that I learned in the early days of Christian counseling.

One of the first things I learned about in therapy was that Scripture gives us rungs of truth to help us out of the pit of depression and despair.

Some of my truths:

• God loves me.
• God accepts me.
• God forgives me.
• I am a child of God.
• He has a plan and a purpose for my life.
• He has never left me nor forsaken me.
• He is with me now.

Instead of looking back on the past and remembering failures and disappointments, tonight, I choose to look forward, not backwards. I’m not going that way. I’ve been there, and it’s time to put everything behind me, tie up my shoelaces, and step into the next season in my life.

The photo above was taken by a friend of mine. The Light of God is shining in this fall season, just as it is shining in my life.