A Time To Laugh

Ecclesiastes 3

A Time for Everything
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

Today's is going to be short. I have been in a pretty sour mood today. Though I am writing this insight about how I shouldn't focus on my negative feelings, it doesn't seem to be helping much. ;-) So it seems all of my emotional negativity is focused around one thing: hurts of the past. For some reason I tend to think about the past all the time. It's one of those things I just can't fully let go, something that randomly sneaks up on me and puts my whole day in a funk.

At the Link last night, Josh's sermon was titled "A Time to Die", and though this doesn't really have a lot to do with the sermon, he did ask one thing that caught my attention; Are we focusing our emotional energy on the hurts of the past and the worries of the future, instead of the season we are in right now? That one stung, because I knew I was very guilty of both. I need to realize that this is supposed to be a wonderful season for me. I am past the bad decisions of the past, I am young and in college. I should be unstoppable. I have all my dreams and my whole life ahead of me, yet I am letting some hurtful memories stand in my way. Forget that. Like Ecclesiastes says, there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Now is the time for me to laugh and dance, not weep and mourn the past. I have spent too much time on that. So it is deffinately "a time to throw away" all the hurts of the past, and submerge myself in the joys of the Lord.