To Everything There is a Season

As I began this prayer and fast for Ben on Monday, I did not have a plan for my prayer, I just let the Lord lead me. While I am at "lunch" at work, I closed myself up in a quiet place, asked God to lead me, and opened my Bible to a seemingly random place and began to read. It was Ecclesiastes 1, which begins " 2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

Hmm.

So I kept reading, knowing that I would eventually find something I could focus on in prayer. I found it in chapter 3

Ecclesiastes 3

A Time for Everything

1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
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 from embracing,
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.

9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. 14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

As I read, of course I thought about how we must deal with the hand we are dealt, and how we work through what we have in front of us. How God never gives s more than we can handle with Him...but I was also struck by this part of verses 12 and 13. "12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God."

This made me think of Ben and his new way of eating for this season.

Anyways, I read and prayed and went on with my day until that evening, when I felt I needed to tell Ben's mom about that chapter--so I did, and she received it.

I am still praying for Ben's healing, for a stop to his seizures and trembling hands, and for strength for his family.