A Time for Everything

I was given this cross-stitch as a gift some 20+ years ago. Whilst I appreciated the fact that someone had taken the time to create this and put it in a lovely frame, I didn’t like it. So I said, Thank you very much, then put it in a box in the spare room, which is where it stayed… until this week.

The text is a quote from the Bible in Ecclesiastes chapter 3. When reading through the Bible each year, I had previously quickly read this chapter and moved on without lingering. I found it to be somewhat less than encouraging with words and phrases such as: die, uproot, kill, tear down, weep, mourn, scatter, refrain, give up, throw away, hate and war. Not exactly mood boosting stuff!

But then about two and a half years ago, this passage came to my mind unexpectedly. I had been working in the school for 19 years but had been in my new role for about 8 months. For the first 18 years at the school, I had worked in the autism class as a learning support assistant. I had loved that job but had outgrown it several years earlier. When the opportunity came up to apply for a job in mainstream, based in the new Sixth Form Centre, I took the plunge. My new role was stretching me and I had begun using skills that I had not been able to use in my old job. But I struggled with the fact that I no longer felt connected to the autism class where I had invested so much of my time. My relationships with most of the staff who had previously left the class (either to retire or move on to other things) had dissolved. I was the last of the ‘old staff’ to leave the class and it had changed beyond recognition from when I first joined. I wanted to retain those friendships but all but two had moved on and weren’t interested in maintaining contact, despite my efforts. I was invigilating an exam in May (or June, I don’t remember) when this passage came to me, ‘There is… a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.’ I didn’t like it, but I knew it was time to let go.

Since then, I have been able to fully commit to my new role. In many ways I have reinvented myself because now I am just being ‘me’. I got rid of all the clothes that I used to wear just for school; I now wear the same stuff as I wear on non-school days. I was given the liberty, under guidance, to fulfill my role my way, with my true personality. And I still go over to the autism class every week to work with students there. But it’s not the old class or the old me. Nevertheless, the new staff and the children seem to like the new Mrs H., the real me. I like it too.

So, onto 2025, which brought this passage into sharp focus. Last year, throughout the whole year, was ‘a time to embrace’ our family. It was also ‘a time to plant’ in our allotment, community and church. But it was also ‘a time to die, to weep, to mourn and to uproot’ with Mum dying and my sister and me selling our childhood home in Yorkshire.

In the first week of 2026, this passage has come back to me again. I have got the cross-stitch out of the box and put it in a place where I can look at it frequently throughout the day as a reminder that there is A Time for Everything. Before Christmas, I started having mystery pains in my chest and in the corresponding place in my back. I even spent a day in A&E where I received a full health MOT, but they couldn’t find anything wrong with me. We had a lovey Christmas. I felt well the whole time, despite this little pain that was still there in the background. Then on New Year’s Eve, I woke up with a cold and cough. But a few days later, I also developed an itchy rash on my back. I went into work as usual for the first day of term. I happened to mention to my colleague that I had started the year with yet another cold and that I had this rash on my back. She said that it could be shingles. So we went into the staff toilet together (haha), after which she said I should go see a doctor. I made an appointment with the GP for that afternoon. Before leaving school, I saw my line manager and told him that I would be back in school the next day as the NHS advice is that, even if I do have shingles, it’s not contagious so long as the rash is covered.

The GP confirmed shingles and gave me a week’s course of antiviral medication. I asked him about the, what I thought was unrelated, pain in my chest and he said it was likely caused by the start of the shingles and that the rash would probably spread to the front in a couple of days. He explained how the virus lays dormant in the nerve for many years and only comes out as shingles when the body’s immune system is weakened by factors such as stress. Well lol! The past few months have been pretty stressful, I thought. Nevertheless, I fully expected to be back in work the next day.

Unfortunately, for some unlucky people, shingles can result in nerve pain. Yours truly is one of those unlucky people. The pain continued to worsen to the point where I had to go back to the GP because it was affecting every area of my life. She told me that there’s no way of knowing how long the pain will persist and that for some people it continues for months. Not what I wanted to hear. So here I am at home at this time. Whilst I am praying and believing for a quick recovery so that I can get back to my wonderful, busy life, now is my ‘time to refrain.’ I can’t work or exercise and sleep is difficult at the moment too. But I can read and sing and write. I’ve got so many half-finished blogs and now I have been given this opportunity to complete them. Whilst I didn’t choose this time, although painful, I now know that the difficult times are necessary to make way for the times to come. I know that there will be ‘a time to be born’ when our new grandson arrives in March. I also know that there will be ‘a time to heal, to laugh, to dance, to gather, to keep, to mend and a time for love and peace’. Therefore, I accept this time and am thankful for it.

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Sharon x