Turn, turn, turn

By Rebecca Vickery


"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

A singer/songwriter in 1959 leaned heavily on the Bible for the lyrics of his song Turn! Turn! Turn!, which The Byrds would make popular in 1965.  To everything (turn turn turn) there is a season (turn turn turn) and a time to every purpose under heaven.  I grew up listening to the words and it was only after I became a believer and started reading the Bible that I realized I recognized the words in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.  These were words of wisdom.  The world borrowed them to sing along.

As human beings, most of what we experience is change, and yet the more things change, the more things stay the same.  I have been in a season of great sadness and deep sorrow in my soul.  I have described this season as harder than any I have ever had to endure.  Lately, however, I have felt strongly that God has been nudging me forward.  The shepherd of my soul has been leading me on.  

All the while my Savior leads me….  I find him most gentle in his leading, and as I take my first steps out into a world that marches on even as my heart is reluctant to move forward, I find this gentleness a deep comfort to my soul.  He does not chide me, you foolish child, stop doubting and believe.  Instead, it is more like, in subtle (and yet not so subtle) surround sound, I hear echoes of his message.  Jesus came to set the captives free, but I have been a captive of my own sadness.  The weight of decisions that are not my own weigh heavily upon me.  And yet, I still believe in the same God.  I still believe that Jesus is the same yesterday today and tomorrow.

In Isaiah 61, he meets me.  He reminds me of why he came:
(1b-3a)
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion--
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes, the oil of joy
instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Jesus came to comfort me.  He bestows on me a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair.
Three different places I heard the same message this past week.  You have allowed this sorrow to take over your existence.  Come out of the dark.  Come up out of your long mourning.  And so I have stepped up in my garments of praise to feel the light of Jesus again on my face.  The warmth feels good, and I have felt lighter for it.  The weight and heaviness of sorrow lifting after what feels like a very long time.
I feel hope and gladness entering to the recesses of my space in a way that it was hard to imagine a week ago.  I lift my eyes up, up to the heavens.  Where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord.  The maker of heaven and earth.  I have been invited into patience.  Can I trust the Lord of all things to do what is right?  Internally, and externally, I can say, of course I can.  
I brought these things to Church with me on Sunday and I waited on the Lord.  We got to see a man gratefully and willingly get baptized, and my heart quickened.  Look at what the Lord can do!  The sermon echoed the same refrain, look at what the Lord can do.  The Pastor invited us to reflect on what the Lord was speaking to our hearts and I said, “Ok Lord, what do I do with this?”  And the words of a familiar Psalm stirred up in me.  “I waited patiently on the Lord, and he turned to me and he heard my cry.  He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.”  Psalm 40:1-3(a)

Oh friend, I don’t know what season you’re in.  Maybe you are doing great, or maybe you, like me are steeped in sorrow.  The Lord invites us on to fellowship with him.  Though the sorrow may last for the night (a season) his joy comes with the mourning.  May your mourning be turned to laughter.  May your sorrow be turned to joy.  May you have a thousand things for which to say, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is with in me, bless His Holy Name.  Invite the Lord into your season, and you may find that He invites you into deeper fellowship with Him!

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