During the Civil War, you would have found many – and in some areas most – of the citizens draped in black. In those times, there was an established convention for mourning, as author Drew Gilpin Faust explains: “a mother mourned for a child for a year, a child for a parent the same, a sister six months for a brother…a widow mourned for two and a half years, moving through prescribed stages of accoutrements of heavy, full and half mourning, with gradually loosening requirements of dress and deportment.”

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing.

Psalm 30:11

There is “a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” (Ecclesiastes 3:4) Everyone will meet with sadness – some more than others, some sooner. But because of Christ, you have the promise of a future where there will be no need for the “accoutrements” of mourning.

You may be frustrated and even angry with your leaders, who sometimes seem bent on steering America away from God’s providence. But remember that they may be living in a world of spiritual death…utterly without hope. Today, compassionately pray they may know the One who forever casts off the accoutrements of mourning and offers a blessed and bright eternity.

Recommended Reading: II Peter 3:8-15