“You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.” Psalms 30:11-12
What a great promise we have here. God can turn our mourning into dancing. He takes our sadness and can clothe us in gladness. He is the transformer of emotions and the producer of joy. This is a wonderful truth to keep in mind when we go through those tough times that will always come.
I have known many who have had to stop a bad habit. That habit could be anything from smoking to over eating to inappropriate language. It seems that in every case the habit must be replaced by something positive to really effect a change in behavior. If we quit something, there is a void left and if we don’t fill it with something, 
it will get filled on its own, sometimes with something just as bad. For instance, today many people try to quit smoking by using e-cigarettes. Recent studies show that e-cigarettes might be bringing a new host of problems themselves. It is one problem replaced by another.
When my dad quit smoking after 30 years, I saw him do something I had never seen him do before- he chewed gum. Before he quit it that was hard for him to do because chewing gum with a cigarette in your mouth is pretty difficult, if not dangerous. Even though he told me that he never craved a cigarette from the day he made the decision to quit, the habits of using his hands to hold something, having something in his mouth, feeling relaxed, and others still had to be filled. The main thing he did was pray. The day he quit he made the drive from Portland to Grants Pass and he said he prayed the whole way and had never done that before. He replaced the bad with something good.
God knows that if we are in mourning, that mourning cannot be just taken away- it must be replaced with something. The verses in Psalms tell us that God doesn’t simply remove our mourning and make it go away, He replaces it with something better. We won’t just stop mourning, we will eventually start dancing. That means that we will move beyond the pain and actually feel whole again.
I have a friend who lost his daughter to a sixteen year battle with cancer. He is still grieves her loss a year later. Understandably, because there may be no harder hurt than losing a child. How can such a tragedy be replaced with peace? I think a story that FB Meyer’s tells might hold they key.One day he met a miserable-looking woman who shared that she had recently lost her crippled daughter who she had cared for for years. 
She was the joy of her life. The mother was now alone and home was not “home” anymore. Meyer gave her wise counsel. “When you get home and put the key in the door,” he said, “say aloud, ‘Jesus, I know You are here!’ and be ready to greet Him directly when you open the door. And as you light the fire tell Him what has happened during the day; if anybody has been kind, tell Him; if anybody has been unkind, tell Him, just as you would have told your daughter. At night stretch out your hand in the darkness and say, ‘Jesus, I know You are here!'” Months later, Meyer was back in that neighborhood and met the woman again, but he did not recognize her. Her face radiated joy instead of announcing misery. “I did as you told me,” she said, “and it has made all the difference in my life, and now I feel I know Him.” This woman had replaced the loss of a daughter with the love of the Father.
We will experience times of sadness- we are 
surrounded by it, but God can remove that and replace it with something good. He might do that through His Word, an encouraging song from the radio, or even a phone call from a friend. He knows our hurt and knows how much we can take. He is watching and waiting for our call and is poised to have a replacement handy.
I had a friend once who had a real potty mouth. After he was saved, he lost about 50% of his vocabulary. He had to make some real changes, but it was hard because his old habit was right on the tip of his tongue. He came up with a safe alternative to swearing. Every time he felt a profanity raising its ugly head, he would clear his throat. This gave him time to think about what he was doing. It was the equivalent of counting to ten before doing something. Admittedly, at the beginning everyone thought he had a chronic cough. But as he got more control of his tongue, the less he had to clear his throat. He substituted something good (or at least neutral) for something bad. Pretty soon he had cleared out the inclination to swear and could stop clearing out his throat.
We need to think about what these verses mean to us. 
Our sorrows, disappointments, tragedies and failures are very real — but they are also “raw material” for a transformation that God will accomplish in us if we allow Him to. And we WILL dance! God will do it. He has picked out the steps already. When we dance, we will sing to Him and the circle of healing will be complete. Our part is simply to wait…believe…and cling tightly to this wonderful promise!
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