For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.
² A time to be born and a time to die.
    A time to plant and a time to harvest.
³ A time to kill and a time to heal.
    A time to tear down and a time to build up.
⁴ A time to cry and a time to laugh.
    A time to grieve and a time to dance.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

November was, as the writer of Ecclesiastes would say, “a season.” It’s a great series of verses, and the inspiration behind many wonderful thoughts, poems, and songs. But I am going to grab hold of just a couple of lines from verse 4. “A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.”

November had some grieving, and it had some tears too. But come Thanksgiving we were laughing and dancing. Because, well, the goodness of life is always going to make me want to dance.

So, this past month is marked by all the emotions and the color and the pain and the healing and the love and the beauty and the gratitude and the family you see in the following thirty images.

And, I’ve got to tell you, everything from the traveling to Philadelphia to share to power of God’s good news, to dad’s passing November 14th, to family gathering for his celebration of life, to the trip to Florida for Thanksgiving, to the wonder of the beginning of Advent – all of it – is saturated in love and light and mercy and grace and promise and the hope that we know so deeply and share so confidently.

There is a time to grieve…. and – even for someone like me with two left feet – a time to dance!

In love, and because love always wins – DEREK