A Time to Gather Stones

“A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:5

Some time ago, I wrote down a simple thought inspired by Ecclesiastes:

There comes a season not only for sowing new seeds, but for gathering the harvest. A season for gathering the thoughts, prayers, songs, and reflections that have emerged over time, and discovering that together they may tell a larger story than any one piece could tell alone.

I saved those words and then forgot about them.

Perhaps that is sometimes how reflection works. Something touches us before we completely understand why. We tuck it away, only to encounter it again when life has quietly caught up with the words.

This morning, looking outside at a clear late-summer sky and feeling the coolness that signals the approach of autumn, those words suddenly seemed different.

September is approaching.

And with it comes change.

Even something as ordinary as cutting off my long hair has felt strangely connected to this changing season. It was a practical decision, certainly, but there was also something refreshing about letting go of what had become cumbersome and stepping into something simpler.

My work is changing as well. Instead of spending most of my time with one infant group, I will be moving between different classrooms during the week. I will still spend one day with the babies, but the other days will bring me among toddlers and older children.

It is a small change, yet a welcome one.

There will be less lifting, less physical strain, and a different kind of responsibility. As a replacement teacher, I will step into classrooms already carrying their own rhythms rather than always being responsible for creating the rhythm myself.

Perhaps this, too, is part of gathering stones.

Ecclesiastes reminds us that life unfolds in seasons:

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

There are seasons when we build, create, begin, and push forward.

And there are seasons when we gather.

Gathering does not mean that creativity has ended or that the work is finished. Sometimes gathering is itself part of the creative work. We begin to notice what has accumulated along the road—the experiences, prayers, mistakes, lessons, joys, sorrows, words, and unexpected graces—and we ask what they have been forming within us.

As autumn approaches, I find myself doing exactly that.

September has always carried the feeling of a new beginning. Perhaps it comes from so many years of living according to the rhythm of the school year. Summer begins to loosen its hold, routines return, classrooms fill again, and the world seems to settle into another pattern.

My birthday also arrives with the changing season, naturally inviting me to look backward and forward at the same time.

Not simply, What have I accomplished this year?

But rather:

Who am I becoming?

That question feels much more important.

Looking back is not merely an accounting of what has been completed. It is an opportunity to recognize where grace has been present—sometimes obviously, sometimes hidden within ordinary days.

And looking forward does not require knowing exactly where the road will lead.

It asks only that I continue walking.

There is still good work before me. There are children to teach and comfort. There are words still waiting to be written. There are prayers to be prayed, people to love, ordinary responsibilities to carry, and countless small opportunities to give thanks.

None of these things needs to be extraordinary.

Perhaps that is another lesson Ecclesiastes quietly teaches us. Life is made of seasons, and wisdom comes partly from recognizing the season we are in rather than constantly wishing ourselves into another one.

There is a time for beginning.

A time for creating.

A time for letting go.

And a time for gathering what remains.

Maybe gathering the stones means looking carefully at everything the journey has placed in our hands and discerning what should be carried forward.

Some things can be released.

Some things have already served their purpose.

And some things, once gathered together, reveal a pattern we could never have seen while we were living them one by one.

This morning, beneath a clear late-summer sky, I am grateful simply to be here—standing again at the threshold of another season.

I do not know everything the coming year will bring.

I do know that each waking day is itself a gift.

And so I thank the Lord for His divine hand upon my life—for the strength to continue, for the grace to keep becoming, and for the opportunity to praise Him not only through the things that seem important, but through the countless little things that make up an ordinary life.

Perhaps this is my season to gather stones.

Not to stop becoming.

But to gather what grace has already given me, and carry it faithfully into whatever comes next.