“You turned my mourning into dancing.” Psalm 30:11
Mourning is nonnegotiable. It can’t be avoided in any life fully lived. Mourning and grieving are identical twins, and when we’ve irretrievably lost something, the healthiest thing to do is grieve. Anyone who doesn’t “grieve their losses” – the small ones and the big ones – is drowning in the river denial.
Mourning comes first and dancing comes after. We don’t usually get to begin with dancing. It comes after the mourning is over – over for the moment anyway. So the typical order is: losing, then mourning, and then dancing; and then it starts all over again when we lose the next thing or person. This order is important. It’s not against the law to switch them around or anything – it’s more like against nature.
If you see a person dancing, really dancing and not just methodically stepping on chalk-drawn footprints on the floor as prescribed by the dance instructor (even I can do that), you know that they’re acquainted with loss. The beauty of their dance is directly related to their loss and how thoroughly they’ve mourned it.
If my estimation of some of my life’s events is accurate I’m a fairly big loser. I can’t turn my mourning into dancing until I’m mourning and I can’t mourn until I’ve lost. It’s not within my purview to shape-shift any of my own mourning into dancing. I can’t, in my own wisdom, transform a loss into a gain. It’s so far above my pay grade that I don’t even know where the office is located where those decisions are made and alterations are generated. I’m pretty sure “mourning to dancings” are an inside job.
I have never been a good dancer, but I think – I hope – this is about to change.
barney wiget 
The dance is something to look forward to. Maybe it is good to remember the times you got through loss and mourning to the dance steps. I want to remember it was possible then and will be again and how new joy feels. When I need hope it is good to remember this progression …so thanks for reminding me.
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I like the phrase you used “new joy” somehow. Maybe it’s because though the old joy was great and just as real, the new kind seems to have something the other didn’t.
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Well said Barney! It’s true that God turns our mourning into dancing in his time, i agree with you that is a dance that is internal and only God can see it and no man, for the same reason that the scripture tells us that the joy of the Lord is our strength and once the Joy of having been redeemed by Jesus grabs hold of our hearts then we have the strength to dance!
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Right on, bro. Keep dancing!
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