A time for every season

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
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 kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
…He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart,
Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

God said that there is a time for everything; things that we consider positive and things we think not so great. Life is made up of the good times and the bad times. But then, God says that He has made everything beautiful…everything. There are things on the list that we try to avoid. We like the times to heal, laugh, embrace, and dance; we see that they are beautiful. It is harder to see the beauty in the times to weep, mourn, hate, and die.

Yesterday, I helped my parents move from their home into a Senior Living Apartment. That was a really hard step for them to take. The season they are in is one they do not like. At 93 and 94, they have become weak and unable to do all the things they would like. My mother has problems in her hip and back that make it hard for her to stand or walk for long. They both just wear out quickly. For their age, they are in amazingly good condition, both physically and mentally, but they have lost the vigor and vitality of younger years and they forget names and details a lot. It is a season that is not pleasant, but, God says there is a time for this season. And, God says there is a beauty in it.

We can experience the beauty of EVERY season and every condition because God has put eternity into our hearts. The beauty of the bad experiences is that God is at work through them. Eternity in our hearts means that something of God is within us. This life is not all there is. God is working in this life to make us ready for the next life, which is the actual real life. The next life will be different. There will only be a time to live, to laugh, to dance, to embrace, to love, to keep, to build up.