A time to weep, a time to laugh

I have heard this verse many times and most often in the lyrics in the song by the Byrds titled Turn!Turn!Turn! It had special meaning today when a small group of the ladies that started me on this daily blog journey were gathered. As I walked up, I could tell there was a heaviness about them. We started talking and they shared sad news of one of our own that had taken a turn for the worse in her battle with cancer. As the conversation continued, we found yet another common bond with two of us that lost a sister to cancer. The things we only know when we open ourselves to sharing and being vulnerable and transparent. The moment was somber as we talked about special moments shared and the need to pray for comfort and peace for her husband that had shared his entire adult life with her.

As I began to walk away, I looked at them both and said I felt they needed a smile. The story I shared is not one for public consumption, but needless to say, it brought forth such boisterous laughter from all three of us as we wiped tears from our eyes. When I left, I gave them a simple visual to make them smile when those moments of sadness and fear of loss return.

I, like many, struggle with the thought of end of life. It is not that I don’t believe that I will be reunited with my family in heaven, but simply the sadness in all that is lost or never experienced.

When we recently lost my mother in law, I was lost thinking of all the things she would never see. She wouldn’t see our twins learning to drive, going to prom, any of our children walk down the aisle or hold our precious grandchild that will soon come into this world. It was a time to weep-and it felt like it would never go away.

Then, something happened. We had asked both our mothers to do a journal that we made into a book. It was based on responses to a daily prompt that they received everyday. We had the book but never sat down to read it, until the Christmas after Nancy passed. Everyday, for the twelve days of Christmas, we read a new story from her book. As we read, we could hear her telling the story in her own words and could almost hear her voice. We laughed so much as we read stories of her childhood, never did we imagine that MawMaw would “borrow” money from her grandma to buy her first cigarette from the local store…I will not mention her age at the time! A time to weep somehow became a time to laugh. Just like today.

“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” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4). We never know that time, but we do know that those moments are followed by more moments. We are not meant to dwell in any one of those times- as the Byrds say in their song, to everything, “turn, turn turn.”