Thoughts of Grace

Sunrise, noon, sunset, midnight.
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
January, May, September,.
Winter, spring, summer, Autumn.
Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas.
These are the punctuation marks of time,
and what a marvelous mercy
that God divided light from darkness,
“and the evening and the morning were the first day”. . .

“For everything its season,
and for every activity under heaven in its time.”
wrote Qoholeth, the preacher of the book of Ecclesiastes.
For birth, death,
planting and uprooting,
killing and healing,
pulling down and building up.
Weeping and laughing,
mourning and dancing,
scattering stones and gathering them,
embracing and refraining,
seeking and losing,
keeping and throwing away,
tearing and mending.
There are times for silence and speech,
for love and hate,
for war and peace.

For the Christian,
time is transfigured
as we see it held in the love of God,
created by and for Jesus Christ,
to whom belongs the primacy
over all created things
and who existed before everything
and holds everything together.
Elisabeth Elliot