A Time to Dance

Ecclesiastes 3 has always been one of my favorite passages.  The whole book is a favorite of mine, but most especially Chapter 3:1-8. 

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace." 

Those verses speak of all the things of life in my opinion.  I find them very comforting at most any time but of late I've found them reminders to of hope because for everything we might experience in life there is an opposite that balances all.  

Today after church I ended up taking a very long route home.  I'd meant to go get groceries, but it was raining and I didn't want to be in and out of the car in rain.  Yet I didn't want to go home.  I'd just spent 8 days at home, mourning the marking of John being gone for two months, of our anniversary.  I wanted to go somewhere, see something different than the inside of my house and sorrow.

I travelled roadways I'd been down hundreds of times over the years.  Traveling to shop, to go on a date, to have dinner out with friends, to visit relatives, to go to work and home again, to just simply get out of the house.  

Today, I had so many memories float up and out of me.  The homes I used to beg my first husband to just consider as a potential home for us.  Each of them has been turned into a truly lovely place.  All of them were sound homes, but they did need work.  Yet, I know in my heart of hearts that had we had any of them, they'd have fallen down around us.  They would have remained as they were when I drew his attention to them.  That was his way, to tear things down but not build them up again.

I recalled drives with friends when we'd laugh and talk and share wisdoms that we'd learned along the way.  And the drives we'd taken where we cried, told the deepest and darkest of truths we carried.  I thought of how many of those friends who have moved far away, and how many have died.  There are no memories I can share with one of them.  It is only I who remains.

I recalled the many long drives home with a chattering child in the back seat who talked all the way of the 50-mile drive home.    I recalled times when John and I rode together so he could attend a class or a work meeting on a day off and then we'd take the long ways home, meandering down old state highways and county roads, talking the whole while.

And then I came to a bridge that I recalled too well.  One day, in total despair, after realizing that I'd given my all for eleven years and my first marriage was every bit as dead as it had been before, I determined I'd drive off that bridge which spanned a railroad track that trailed through the wooded ravines under the road.  I was so weary of the depression, of the lies, of trying, of feeling I was destined to experience nothing but sorrows and hurts.

I gunned the engine, headed towards the barrier, sobbing "No one cares!"  And just as I came near the wall of the bridge, the car swerved gently and I heard a quiet voice in my head say, "You forgot me.  I care."  

I knew it to be the voice of God.  

Stunned, I found a place further ahead to pull off the road and absorb what had just occurred.  

I barely knew Him.  I had never in my life felt worthy of His attention.  It was not a miraculous change that occurred within me.  My marriage was still a miserable failure.  My depression was as real as it had ever been.  There were many more hard days and tragedies ahead of me. It wasn't even a salvation experience.  I didn't get saved then.  That came years later.  But something within me budded with hope that day.  I hung on to life, refusing to give in to the voice that repeatedly said, "I should just end it all now...   I was assured somewhere deep inside that there were better things ahead in my life.

And today, I looked back and realized how close I'd been to missing what was the most blessed part of my life.   I didn't know then that a little brown eyed girl of whom I constantly dreamed would one day be in my arms.  Nor that the man I'd love dearly and who loved me most dearly would come into my life.   And certainly not the 15 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren I can count as my own now.  I didn't know that I'd have a home here on the land where I always felt happy and secure or that I'd be able to make my home one that I'd love dearly, or a life such as I've had the past 30 years.  I didn't know then that I'd come to be depression free, released from those black choking cords.  Or that I'd have an awesome experience that would lead to my being saved.  I didn't know that I'd be a writer with an audience.  Or how many remarkable people would come, and go, from my life. I'd have missed so much of what has been really good about my life if I'd not heard His voice.  

I was humbled to something stronger than tears today.  I needed that moment, which was very sobering.  

I needed the reminder, too, that there is one who lies and will assure us we are unworthy, that nothing will ever change, that what we do will never matter, that no good will ever come, and that we are better dead than alive.  And there is One who loves us and has good things for us, if we're willing to allow Him to direct us and change us, trusting Him all the while.

I don't know what lies ahead of me in my life at this point.  No matter how hard I peer into the future, it is a haze.  I can't read it. It is my time to mourn...but there's a promise in the verse above that there will also be a time to dance.

I want to travel new roads.  I want the new memories ahead of me.  I want to go on and see what comes next.  

For a time, I will mourn what I've lost...but I'm looking forward to dancing, too.