A Time For Everything

Ecclesiastes 3: 1 & 4
"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance"

For my family, 2010 has been a time for the former of both these verses- a time to weep & and a time to mourn.

I can never remember a year that was filled with more sorrow, heartache, and pain.

My heart has never longed like it has this year.

The death of family and family friends.

Sickness that still haunts us.

Stories that don't seem to have the capacity of more negative outcomes to only disprove this theory.

We have mourned health and life this year.

We cried over thousands of unanswered questions.

Laughing and dancing has had no part in my vocabulary many a day this year. There have been many nights where I have driven around, talking aloud to the Lord asking and wondering "how long" until this season will pass. Pleading for a season of "the Lord's favor" to rest on my family, specifically the health of my family.

This Christmas season has especially been hard for me. I can hardly believe how many things remind me of my grandmother. There is a small part of me that wants to walk down to her house (she lived right down my street) , sit on her back porch, and just cry. I have so many memories in that house. Some of my most cherished childhood memories were formed there.

I sit here, with tears that still continue to stream....

Yet, my earthly desires, questions, and wants can still be coated in joy because He is the One Who gives me strength. Even when I fail to ask. Even when I question and doubt. Even when my sinful wants and desires overtake me, He remains faithful and reminds me of that little baby in the manger.

He is why we are here.

Yes, He is the reason for the season.

What joy fills my heart when I stop thinking of myself and focus on that baby, so soft and so sweet.

So full of promise and HOPE.