Tender Time - One Year Devotions for Women

A time to grieve and a time to dance. - Ecclesiastes 3:4

Jesus said that it’s hard to mourn when the groom is with you. On the other hand, it’s hard not to mourn when the groom is taken away (see Matthew 9:15)! When the wedding is in full swing, it is time to dance. If the groom were to die, it would be time to mourn.

I heard a true account of a wedding of two young Bible school students who really loved the Lord and were preparing to serve him together. On their way to their honeymoon hotel, the groom was killed in a car crash. How soon the dancing turned into mourning!

Sometimes the two things come so close to each other it shat-ters the soul. The parents of the young man who met such an untimely death did not believe their son’s home call was some freakish accident. The Christian doesn’t believe in accidents of that magnitude. Actually, there is no such thing as “untimely” death for the Christian, for we believe there is “a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2).

Time is a kind cushion, separating the good days from the bad days, preparing us for change. Time heals. Time gives us perspective we’ve never had before. Time taken for grieving eventually helps us to dance. Time taken for dancing helps us to prepare ourselves to grieve. Time ripens us, like cheese, making us sharp. Time does not usually demand such instant adjustments as in this sad incident of such unexpected death. But when such things do happen, tender time takes care of the wounds.

For Further Study: Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

Excerpted from The One Year Devotions for Women, Copyright ©2000 by Jill Briscoe. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

For more from Jill Briscoe, please visit TellingtheTruth.org.

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