I have always loved fall. Specifically the beautiful, color-changing leaves. But there is something so mesmerizing about the bare trees in the wintertime.

I just got home from college for the holidays, and my family and I decided to run a few errands at our downtown square. During every Christmas season, our downtown puts lights all around the trees, and the fountain.

I usually miss the leaves falling, but this is definitely something I look forward to. As we drove past the bare trees, my dad said something that really stuck out to me. He said, “Man, I love bare trees. They’re full of potential.”

Full of potential… I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that.

The trees have lost their leaves, but next season, new ones replace the old.

So many people dread the falling of leaves and the coming of the cold. Many times it can seem like a burden. You have to rake up all of the leaves that have gathered in your yard, and just when you think they’re finished falling, more gather in that same spot.

And then it turns cold. No more loose leaves, but it can seem hard to bear the outdoors. However, if it weren’t for the cold, there would never be the promise of a new season. The bare trees seem empty at first glance, but they’re full of potential and full of promises.

As I reflect upon my first semester in college, there has been a whole lot of change. There have been so many blessings, but there have also been times where it has been difficult to see the potential in the “bare tree” moments of life.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 tells us this:

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time for war, and a time for peace."

The Lord knows every season of our lives. He has seen it before we were born, and He knows the next season that's coming.

"He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

Bare trees produce new leaves, and new leaves signify a new season- a new beginning.

Full of potential. Full of promises.