It’s fall time, and change is on the way. We look forward to the changes. Beautiful leaves, crisp
air, a brighter than life sun and wonderful moderate temperatures. But that’s the beginning of fall. If we
look on down the road, we will see those same leaves, once beautiful and bright, are now brown and
scraggly. Tree limbs that were filled with color are now bare and barren. That crisp air turns out and out
cold. The brighter than life sun, more often than not is now gray.

So it seems with our children. As babies they are so wonderful. We encourage them to say those
first melodic words, to take those very first steps, and we adore their cute little ways. As time goes on
they make a change. No longer infants our teens make a big change. Those simple little words are now
sentences that are strung together to question and deny rules. Those steps that we celebrated are so
fast we can’t keep up with our teens anymore. Those cute little behaviors are now annoying, and we are
encouraging them to grow up and stop acting like a baby.

Like the fall and babyhood, this season called “teenage” will pass soon. So many changes will
take place in such a short time that it hardly seems worth the effort to get overly concerned.
Remember, “This too will pass.” This season will be over in due time. Don’t get sidetracked by every
little change. Change must occur, if our teens are going to make it to the season of “adulthood.”

Like the fall season, our teens will have moments of glory. There will be beautiful days with
glorious weather, but there will also be gloomy, gray wet days. But those days will pass too. The most
we can do is seek to have more of those beautiful days, and pray for the gray days to pass quickly.