A movie from a few (?) years ago called Good Will Hunting had a dramatic scene where the troubled young man who has been seeing a counselor has a melt down. He has been working for months with the counselor and is frustrated that he doesn’t feel better. At this point the counselor says to him the thing he needs to hear: “It’s not your fault.” Even though the counselor could have said that months ago he knew just the right time to say it in a way that the young man could hear and accept it. The appropriate word depended on the proprer timing. That’s the Biblical message as well: There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every thing under the heavens. Parents learn that there is a proper time to scold a child and a proper time to console a child. In our relationships we need to learn is it the time for tough love or tender love. For, despite what we read in Ecclesiastes, it is always the time for love.
