A time for everything... (A time to mourn)

When it's dark and cold, when the tears don't cease their flow,, when hope is cold, fears blazing, when despair perpetually knocks on my door. Help me see, help me know that You are near

I remember that morning, a morning from years gone by. I was young, in my early teens and that morning it was my duty to take the waste out and I did; two problems though, the dump was a 20minute walk from my house and it was about 5.30am in the morning. End result? I got myself arrested because unknown to me, the government had declared that area as unfit for dumping waste. Imagine this, a young teen arrested at about 6am in the morning, you can imagine how frightened I was (or was I?). But then imagine this, how worried my mother was when I didn't come home. A while after, my mum came to look for me, she found me kneeling down with several other culprits and my mum did something that today, brings tears to my eyes, she knelt beside me and told the officials (that is what I think they were), to take her instead. She pleaded, she begged and finally they let us go on the condition that we cleaned up the area. Today, many years later, that is what I remember, my mum kneeling beside me even more scared and worried than I was. My mum died on the 4th of April 2009. This is just one of the many memories I have of her.

I remember that afternoon, I was a student working over the holidays. I was driving and a colleague of mine, a student as well, was a passenger; he asked me to take him home to pick up some stuff. He lived in a part of town known for serious and most times brutal gang battles. The whole country knew of that area. I was freaked out that afternoon but I took him because he asked and because I believed him when he told me not to be scared. It was my first time in that part of town and till today I remember that afternoon, we talked, we laughed made the trip and got back in one piece. He lived with His grandma because his parents didn't stay in that town. I still remember that morning, the 1st of January 2007. I saw an elderly woman crying on TV while being interviewed, crying because the police wouldn't give her access to her grandson. That is how I got to find out that Clement had been shot dead that morning during a gun fight between the police and gang members. He was on his way back from church.

As a child I would never have understood what it cost my mother to see her son arrested or detained for something he knew nothing about, as a father I now do. As Clement's friend, knowing the life he lived while alive, there is no way he could have been a gang member, no way in my mind he would have deserved death, but now I know better. We live in a world with so many different memories, a lot of time we choose to shut out the pain, to act like we don't care. Sometimes we choose to dwell in the pain, in the hurt and we end up with heart breaks. I don't know which you choose but then I do know this, "there is a time to mourn and a time to dance". There is a balance. I chose two examples on this day to share and say this that no matter how dark it gets, light always finds a way to shine through. We mourn, focusing on the death, the reasons. We question God and sometimes we tend to stray towards losing our faith. There is a time to mourn and mourn properly not focused on the death, but focused on the lives lived here on earth. Then and only then can our mourning be turned into dancing again. Then we can focus on the light, the glimmer of hope that shines through the darkness and reaches out to us, then we can reach out to it and have our tears break up with smiles, joy and laughter.

Smiles of joy, tears of laughter,
Breaking through hearts in despair,
Rays of hope, myriads of light,
Shining through the darkest night.
A time to mourn, a time to dance,
The time is now, stretch out your hands
To healing, a broken heart,
To find your way, o lost soul
To revival, a wavering life

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Though we are many, we are one. We face the same fears for different reasons, we cry the same tears for different reasons, we find hope however for similar reasons, we find life for the same reason, the One who came to save us all, He is our Light, our Life, our Hope.

You will smile again