I went to the Morton Arboretum with my granddaughter yesterday to paint pumpkins. http://www.mortonarb.org/for-kids.html. It was a little cold, but a lot of fun. There were pumpkins and people of all sizes and shapes.
October is always pumpkin month with the onset of cold weather, changing leaves, and Halloween. While I personally do not celebrate Halloween, sitting near a pumpkin patch and painting a pumpkin made me think of hot apple cider, jack-o-laterns and roasted pumpkin seeds.
It dawned on me there is a spiritual application to all of this: a pumpkin is sliced, scraped, and gutted in order that it might be transformed into its creator’s image.
(Okay, it’s a little of a stretch but bear with me.)
Doesn’t our Creator allow similar splicing and gutting to transform us? Granted He doesn’t use an actual knife, but sometimes life’s circumstances certainly make us feel as if we’ve been stabbed. Don’t we at times feel as if we’ve endured gut-wrenching circumstances? Isn’t God’s ultimate goal to makes us shine forth with His light – a.k.a. a candle inside of us?
An author name Beecher puts it this way:
“Do not be afraid to suffer. Do not be afraid to be overthrown. It is by being cast down and not destroyed; it is by being shaken to pieces, and the pieces torn to shreds [gutting], that men become men of might…”
So this Halloween season as you see jack-o-laterns sitting on porches may it not remind you of the evil one’s celebration day. No, instead, let it be a visual reminder that although you may be in the midst of a God ordered transformation process, one day you will sit on His heavenly porch and shine forth His glory for all to see!