A Time for Everything

³ a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;

⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

Just yesterday a sweet friend gave me a Write the Word journal.  In my desire to dive deeper into the Bible, I was so excited to get started today at naptime.

(If you haven’t heard of the Write the Word journal, it is a journal by Lara Casey’s Cultivate What Matters shop that has a specific scripture for each day that you write out and then has a page for you to record any thoughts you have.)

Today’s entry was Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, which I posted above.

As I was getting ready to write my thoughts about this section of scripture, I realized that I’d rather not keep my thoughts to myself today,  but that I would share them with you.

Because today is a special day, for many reasons.

 

For you, today is probably September 11th:  the day the world stood still 16 years ago.

And it is for me, too.

But it’s also, September 11th: the day my world stood still as I walked into a church as a single woman, and left as a wife 19 years ago.

The fact that I was reading and writing a section of scripture that so beautifully and simply lays out the contradictions of life and the seasons of life today was yet another reminder that God has ordained all of my days, all of my steps.

Because any other day, I would’ve thought this was a great section of scripture, written it and went about my day.

But today, of all days, God had me write this scripture out.

And here’s why…

Since 2001, I’ve felt conflicted about ‘celebrating’ our anniversary.  It feels almost insensitive to celebrate and rejoice on a day that will forever remind Americans of the horror of that day.  The lives lost, the fear, the panic.

And yet….it’s our anniversary.  To be bratty about it…it was our anniversary first.  I wish those terrorists had chosen another day (preferably one that the airlines would’ve had more precautions in place and been able to stop all of the tragedy of the day from ever occuring in the first place…but hindsight is 20/20).

But as Ecclesiastes reminds us, there is a season for everything.

A time to mourn and a time to dance

A time to weep and a time to laugh

A time to be born and a time to die

So today I will embrace the seasons.

I will mourn, and I also will dance.

I will cry, but I also will laugh.

I will celebrate the  ‘life’ of my marriage and I will remember those who perished.

To everything there is a season…..and we may not know when our seasons will change.

But we know the Creator of the seasons.  And in Him I have hope.