TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON: ENDURING SEASONS OF DIFFICULTY

By Monique Jones

I walked in grief with a close friend who had recently lost her mother. She was turning 30, an age marking a period of life psychologists identify as the “age of transition.” She would now have to face life and all its vicissitudes without her mother. No longer able to tap into the wise counsel of her mother or to gather pearls of wisdom from a resource that at times knew her better than herself, my friend would have to transition into her own self-proclaimed womanhood without her mother.  She would have to claim herself while proclaiming her purpose, all this without a mother to share untold stories or lessons gleaned from living.

I felt like a spectator, standing on the sidelines of my dear sister’s tragedy. I would never quite fully understand what was going on inside the heart and mind of my friend.  However, I did recognize that this would be a season of change, a time of discomfort and pain: “to everything there is a season.”   

Careful to not use the often times more damaging cliché, “it all happens for a reason,” I walked in solidarity with her, offering an arm of comfort, an ear of compassionate listening, and my love: patient and free of judgment. Sometimes those walking paths of grief are not looking for answers, but simply an ear willing to listen to the sound of their heartbreak. And in the midst of this, I thought about the fact that change is inevitable.  Here, I was comforting my friend recognizing that as she approached the age of transition, the very world in which her changing life would be lived was shifting beneath her feet.  However, all of the pieces of her life that were connected to her mother that appeared to have been stolen away too soon, would eventually be seen as the pieces to a greater story that was still being written. 

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck 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...(Ecclesiastes 3:1-4) 

 The writer of Ecclesiastes speaks about there not only being a designated time for every delightful thing, person or activity, but a designated time to enjoy those very things as well.  So what does it mean when the very things that bring us joy are then taken away from us?  Many would suggest that this verse indicates that the pain of grief has a purpose and thus should give us hope.  However, I challenge that we expand to see that this verse may suggest more than that.  It means that hope is found in the idea that because God had already ordained the existence of this mother-daughter relationship and the exchange of love and delight that took place, that God is still in control even in the midst of all of the pain, anger, doubt or confusion.  Later, the writer states that God “has made everything beautiful in its time...[and that] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Eccl 3:11)." Hope lies within the process of life’s pain and grief.  We have to believe that while god is still n control in every situation, there is beauty still yet to be found in our life, in our periods of transition, and out encounters with change.  That the very weight of death of a loved one speaks not to our inability to grasp an instantaneous understanding of the purpose of that death, but of the god-purposed beauty that will unfold through the very process of struggling with that weight.

To everything there is a season: "A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw 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 of war, And a time of peace (Ecclesiastes 3:5-8)".  

There is a time to grieve and a time to celebrate, a time to laugh and a time to cry, but when it's all said and done, God will look upon you and still say, "it is good."  

Monique L. Jones, M.Div. is a mother, sister, daughter, teacher, advocate for women and youth, aspiring writer and public intellectual. Monique earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and African American Studies from Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and a Master of Divinity degree with a concentration in Theology and Women's Studies from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ.  Her Studies have afforded her the opportunity to travel internationally to Peru, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay, India, Cuba, and Argentina.  She is currently an M.S.W. degree candidate at the Graduate School of Social Work at Rutgers University where her focus is on clinical social work and social policy, with hopes of working in black communities both domestically and globally.  Her broader interests include the intersection of pastoral counseling, womanist theory and spiritual autobiographical writing as both worship and healing.