"There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:
A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace."
I love these verses. I love their truth and their wisdom. I love the ways I can see them reflected in my own life. I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately; change has that effect on me. The past year and a half has brought up so many challenges and so many changes. And God has remained faithful when I have not. He has a time for everything in my life. He is the one taking my decisions, my messes, my life, and turning them into something beautiful that brings Him glory. I am often not happy with His timing. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20, and a lot of the things I was unhappy or bitter about have become things I am thankful for.
A year ago I was getting ready to enter my last semester of college. I was making all kinds of plans; applications to jobs from Colorado to Germany. I thought I was ready to go. Then through the slightly harsh, yet loving wisdom of a friend, I realized I wasn't going, I was running away. I didn't want to get invested. And as many of my fellow MKs/TCKs will understand, that was my pattern. A new place, a new group of people, something new and exciting all the time. Change is our norm. I didn't know how to be. So one of the many things I have been challenged in this past year was learning how to be. Not do and not go. Just be still. And it has been challenging.
The verses that follow this passage in Ecclesiastes say,
"What do people really get for all their hard work? 10 I have seen the burden God has placed on us all.11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. 12 So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. 13 And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.14 And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should worship Him in holy fear."
There is a time for everything. But above all, God wants us to know Him and worship Him. I have seen and experienced and needed God's forgiveness and love this past year in a way I never have before. I have tasted it, and it is beautiful, and it is changing me. And my desire to know Him and to be is growing.
There is a time for everything. God, in His grace and His goodness, has provided me with an opportunity to go - with a completely changed mindset and a different heart. I get to spend three months in Tanzania at the City of Hope with Teamwork Ministries. This includes an orphanage, a school and a medical clinic. This is an opportunity to get to know my Savior better, to learn how to be when there is also much to do. This is an
opportunity to seek clarity about God's timing and His desires for my
future.
I don't know much about what these months will
look like. But I am excited to go and to know and to be.
