Bound in the Bundle of the Living

Today has been one of those days in which I just hurt. Not physically, but my heart aches. For the past few days, I've been struggling with those ugly uncertainties that creep up and attack when we least expect them. If you're a girl, you can relate. Maybe it's because I've just returned after a refreshing and life-giving visit home, but I have just felt worn down, unable, unvalued, ungraceful, less-than-beautiful. These moments of insecurity are rare, but when they hit, they hit hard.

I'm reading a book called "Cold Tangerines" by Shauna Neiquist, and it's pretty amazing. In the book, she talks about an experience in which she moved into an old house, pretty worn down and in need of many repairs. She was excited about the house, until she visited a friend who lived in a brand new house. When she returned home, she looked at the house she once loved and saw all the damage and disrepair and brokenness that resided there. And she compared that old house to our lives: we strive to be the perfect house, when in reality we look more like the old, broken house. But God looks at us and says "Well, yeah, you are broken, and yeah, there's a lot of things we need to improve. But that will come in time, and you have to trust that I will guide you through those improvements. In the meantime, you still have purpose in sheltering the people within your walls. Stop trying to be like the new house, and fulfill your purpose as the old house, all the while trusting me to finish the work which I began in you."

I was reading in 1 Samuel, and came across a phrase I had never seen before. It was said by Abigail before she married David, and she said that his life would be "bound in the bundle of the living". Seemed like a strange saying, so I read the references to it in hopes of understanding better. According to my reference, this is a graphic Hebrew saying that was often found on Jewish tombstones and referring to life beyond the grave. It referred to the custom of binding valuable possessions to keep them from being broken or damaged. The picture is one of a precious jewel, carefully tied up in a bundle to remain secure and safe. Reading that description was one of those powerful "God-moments" in which I realized.....the Author of all things sees me as a jewel and desires to protect and secure my life, to heal my brokenness. Even though I am less than less than nothing compared to His glory, He still sees me, knows my name, and calls me beautiful and valuable even on days when I feel bland and useless.

I don't know why I so often forget it, but God is LOVE, and that love is given to me in abundance. If my life were a red solo cup, God's love is like a pitcher over the cup, watching it overflow, still not removing the pitcher, but letting it overflow instead until waterfalls are falling off the table and filling up the room. I am undeserving. I am loved. I am abundantly grateful.

And with that knowledge, my lungs fill up again, and I can sing back to my Creator and Sustainer. "Safe in the arms of Jesus, safe on His gentle breast/There by His love o'ershaded, sweetly my soul shall rest" or "And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own/and the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known". Or maybe "Should we with ink the ocean fill and ever sky a parchment made/were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade/to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry/Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky."