Covenant

God has had covenant on my mind.

When Will and I were discussing marriage before we entered into our covenant he asked me what marriage meant to me. He felt, like many do that a piece of paper isn’t important, that marriage is just a symbol, a contract. God had been forming a picture of marriage in my mind for some time at that point. He had been teaching me to depend on Him for my security, to give my man room to discover who he is in God. He had been teaching me freedom. I don’t remember how exactly He formed the concept in my heart but my response to Will was “marriage is a covenant.” He looked at me like I was speaking martian “and what exactly does that mean?” He asked. I remember this all so clearly. I can still see the room and his bemused face. I responded with a seemingly simple answer that means so much more than the 16 words that explain it. “It means that I will be your wife whether you are being my husband or not.” God taught me this concept.

The first song that played at Damon’s funeral was “Praise you in this storm” by Casting Crowns. The chorus says:

And I’ll praise You in this storm

And I will lift my hands

For You are who You are

No matter where I am….

These words play over and over in my thoughts. He is who He is, no matter where I am. This is what covenant means.

Recently Isaiah has had a bit of a rainbow fascination. He made an entire book about rainbows. It’s a good eight pages long, each page illustrated with a rainbow. Page two reads “the rainbows are God’s promises.” I really believe that the heart of a child is capable of hearing God more clearly than at any other time in our lives. My sweet boy got me started thinking about the rainbow and about the promise God gave when he painted the sky with the first one.

I suddenly remembered that the day Damon was born God painted the sky with not one but two rainbows. One inside the other. I never would have known but my mom took pictures.

Today my study was about Noah. Coincidence? I think not. God brought together my two thought themes of the last days. Genesis 6, 7 & 8 tell the story of the first covenant God saw fit to include in Holy Writ, perhaps the first covenant He made. In this covenant God binds Himself to His children. God bound Himself to us, through all generations. This is so significant and beautiful and… woot woot! I can’t describe the way it makes me feel to know my God is bound to me by His Holy Word, not by some piece of paper.

Beautifully, the first covenant was not the last. He bound Himself to me with the blood of His first born at the cross

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For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. – 1 Peter 1:18

My God, the maker of heaven and earth bound Himself to me with the blood of His son. He is who He is no matter where I am. He is my Rock and to this Rock I cling.