Moving along in the different seasons of life that are covered in our Ecclesiastes, Solomon now covers to subjects, building and love.  

Ecc 3:5  A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away.

A time to scatter means clearing of the land, and then there is a time to gather stones, and build homes and buildings.  

The second half of today’s devotional: A time to embrace and a time to turn away…shows us that in our personal love lives, there might be seasons where we aren’t always Lovey-dovey with our partners.  After the original newness of a relationship wears off, couples can fall away from one another…for a time.  As the verse says, these are times, and while they are challenging realties in our relationships, it is up to us to overcome them and remember that they are passing storms.  As Jesus says in Matthew 19:6 – “What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate”.  

So circling back to the main idea of the passage, there is a time for embrace and a time for turning away; each marriage has it’s ups and downs.  This is still a good passage to fall back on when our own relationships may hit some pitfalls; like everything else in life, there are going to valleys, but on the bright side, there are peaks too.