How does fall arrive in your heart?

I love fall, but out here in Tennessee, the stores have been decorated for fall and selling fall decor since August, when school went back in session, and that is a little too early for me.

I have not started with the “Happy Fall, y’all” stuff yet. Well, I don’t even like that phrase on decor, but it is what we say to everyone. 😂

Something about fall always feels different.

Maybe it is the cooling air, the earlier sunsets, or the way we begin pulling things in after a busy summer. We get wood ready for the fireplace. We make soups again. I like to boil citrus and cinnamon on the stove just to make the house smell good.

Everything seems to invite us to slow down a little.

And I think slowing down makes room for remembering.

As Annie would say, it is time to “cozy down.”

Cozy.

It was her word for home, her bed, and all things comforting.

And maybe that is why fall brings so many old family memories back to the surface for me. The routines, the smells, the things we did year after year without realizing that someday they would become part of our family story.

For our family, one of those stories involves applesauce.

Not just applesauce, but……

The Great Applesauce Fight

That is what Annie named it. If you have ever canned applesauce, you know it can be an ALL-day process.

Well, it was for me.

I didn’t just make a few quarts. No, I canned enough for our family of five to eat every Saturday morning with peanut butter toast smothered in warm applesauce.

And because we lived in Washington State, getting boxes and boxes of the best crisp apples was easy.

Canning day actually started the day before. I would wash the jars and get everything ready. Then I would set my kitchen up like a small applesauce factory.

There was an order to everything:

• Washing and coring the apples
• Boiling them
• Running them through the fruit strainer on my KitchenAid
• Filling the clean jars, wiping the rims, placing the seals and rings
• Finally lowering them into the canning pots.

It was a well-oiled machine.

The entire process to get roughly 60 quarts took about 12 hours from start to finish.

By the end of the day, my neck hurt. My back hurt. My feet hurt.

But those beautiful golden jars lined up on the counter made it worth it.

And then came the sound every person who cans loves to hear.

Pop.

Pop.

Pop.

The lids sealing.

Except one year, apparently they didn’t.

A couple of nights after my canning marathon, I noticed mold on a few jars and realized more than half of them hadn’t sealed.

That had never happened before.

I had been so exhausted that I went to bed without checking every lid, and I had already put the jars away.

That evening, after we put the kids to bed, Todd looked at his completely exhausted wife and, in what I know he intended to be a very caring and encouraging manner, said:

“It’s okay. You can try again!”

I hope you are thinking the same thing that immediately came blurting out of my mouth.

“I?”   

‘I’ can just try again?!?!?”

Poor Todd.  He tried to back up and redirect, but it was too late.

My exhausted and completely worn-out heart was NOT going to joyfully say, “You’re right, honey. I will just try again!”

Instead, it went something like this:

“Are you serious? I can just go buy more boxes of apples. Then I can just get all of that stuff out again. Then I can just spend another whole day doing it, and I can get a neck and backache all over again. NO! It is not okay!”

Of course, I was crying.

And apparently my voice was loud enough to bring all three kids to the top of the stairs, where they sat quietly listening to see how this “fight” (as they recall it) was going to resolve.

I honestly don’t remember much more about that moment.

I can tell you my canning days did eventually come to an end, and when we moved from Washington to Tennessee, my canning supplies did not come with me.

But the story did.

Now when our family says,

“Remember The Great Applesauce Fight?”

And laughter fills the room.

I love that.

Because something that was absolutely NOT funny to me at the time has become one of the stories our family carries.

And now that Annie is no longer sitting in the room laughing with us, the fact that she named the story matters even more.

Sometimes Comfort Sounds Like, “Remember When…?”

Since losing Annie, I have learned that one of the greatest comforts someone can give me is the opportunity to talk about her.

• Ask me a question.
• Tell me something you remember.
• Say her name.
• Bring up a story I may have forgotten.
• Tell me something she said to you or something the two of you did that I never knew about.

There is comfort in knowing that the memories I carry are not mine alone.

I think sometimes we misunderstand comfort.

We think comforting someone means finding words that will somehow make what happened hurt less.

But that isn’t always what comfort does.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3–4, Paul calls God the “God of all comfort.”

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”

The word comfort is repeated throughout the opening verses of 2 Corinthians.

And the biblical idea behind comfort carries this sense of strengthening someone—standing beside them and encouraging them as they endure something hard because they are not alone.

That has changed the way I think about comfort.

Comfort does not necessarily eliminate the pain, but it does alleviate it.

Sometimes comfort gives us strength to live inside a reality we did not choose.

It says:

• I will stand here with you.
• I will remember with you.
• You do not have to carry this story alone.

God’s Comfort Often Comes Through Other People

When I started paying attention to the ways God has comforted me, I realized how often His comfort arrived through ordinary things.

A Scripture I needed that particular day.

A song whose words met me exactly where I was.

One of my kids or Todd calling or texting just to say, “I love you.”

A friend willing to walk with me, laugh with me, listen to me, or tell me the truth when I need to hear it.

And now, after Annie, I would add another one:

Someone asking me to tell a story.

That may seem like such a small thing.

It is not.

When someone asks me about Annie, they are not reminding me that she died.

I already know she died.

They are reminding me that she lived and they care.

There is a big difference.

They are helping me remember the girl who called everything comforting “cozy.”

The daughter who loved fall.

The one who sat at the top of the stairs with her brothers listening to her mother completely lose it over applesauce.

Those stories don’t erase my grief.  They strengthen me inside it.

That is comfort.

We Are Each Fashioned to Comfort Differently

Another thing I love about 2 Corinthians 1 is that Paul doesn’t tell us exactly what comforting another person has to look like.

God comforts us, and then we can comfort others from what we ourselves have received.

That means comfort will not always look the same.

• Some people naturally call to check on a friend.
• Someone else cooks the meal.
• Someone sends the card.
• Someone sits quietly beside a person.
• Someone remembers an important date.
• Someone asks a question everyone else is afraid to ask.
• And someone says: “Tell me about her.”

You may be doing things that comfort people without even realizing it.

What do people thank you for?

Pay attention to those things, because what feels small or natural to you may have brought real comfort to someone else.

What comes naturally to you?

That may be one of the ways God has uniquely fashioned you to comfort others.

And think about the ways God has met you in difficult places. How might the comfort you received become something you can now offer someone else?

It doesn’t have to be impressive.

Comfort is often much smaller, simpler, and more personal than we realize.

The Stories Deserve to Be Remembered

This is actually one of the reasons I created my Beyond “I Don’t Know What to Say” Grief Communication Cards.

After loss, people often want to say something but are afraid of saying the wrong thing.

And those of us grieving often want to talk about the person we love but don’t know how to open that door without feeling like we are making everyone uncomfortable.

So sometimes nobody says anything.

And the stories stay quiet.

I don’t want that.

Stories help keep the people we love in the room.

They give us another place to put our love.

A question such as, “What is a memory that still makes you laugh?” can bring back a moment that has not been spoken about in years.

One question can lead to another story.

And another.

And suddenly the person we miss is part of the conversation again.

That is why these words mean so much to me:

“May these cards help you keep memories alive and draw out the stories that deserve to be remembered.”

Maybe one of the kindest forms of comfort we can offer someone who is grieving is simply giving them room to remember.

• Not fixing.
• Not explaining.
• Not trying to make the sadness go away.
• Just making room for the story.

How Does Fall Arrive in Your Heart?

When fall arrives for me, there is still a desire to “cozy down.”

Warm soup.

A fire.

Cinnamon simmering on the stove.

And yes, even warm applesauce.

But now I understand comfort differently than I once did.

Comfort is not simply being cozy or protected from hard things.

Sometimes comfort is the strength God gives us while we are living through them.

And so often, He gives that comfort through each other.

Through presence.

Through Scripture.

Through a phone call.

Through someone remembering.

Through a story that begins with:

“Do you remember when…?”

And sometimes even through a family argument over 60 quarts of applesauce that nobody knew, at the time, would someday become a treasured memory.

So as we move into fall, I would love to ask you two questions:

How does fall arrive in your heart?

And maybe even more importantly,

How has God comforted you lately—and could the way He comforted you be something you can offer someone else?