Cover Me

Every one of us longs to be covered.

We long to have our shortcomings covered… those imperfections in our abilities that we try to hide from others lest we be exposed for what we really are.

We long to have our sins are covered… those places in our past that fill us with shame when we think about them.

We long to have our aspirations covered… so that they don’t end up along with our failures.

We long to have our fears covered concerning our future.

We long to be protected from the darkness we see all around us in the world.

We long to know that there is a place for us and a people to whom we belong… where we are welcomed and wanted.

We long for a home where the best in us is called out and we are encouraged.

We long for a place where our failures are covered and our brokenness made whole.

We all long to be known.

All of these longings that I am convinced are deep inside all of us must explain why the story of Ruth moves me every time I read it.

Especially chapter 3, verse 9.

Ruth is a long ways from home. From a much-despised ethnicity. A widow with only a mother in law for family. In a strange country with no means of support. No home of her own. No future. No income. No friends. Picking up other people’s left overs just to to get by… when she finds herself working in the fields of a relative of her deceased father in law.

One night, after working the fields all day, the workers and the landowner went to sleep right on the threshing floor to protect the harvest. Ruth’s mother in law had instructed her concerning appropriate behavior in this situation. Ruth was to quietly uncover the relative/landowner’s feet, presumably to gently awaken him, and then she was to lie down at his feet.

But it is what she said to him when he recognized her that night that stirs something deep inside of me every time I read it.

“Spread the corner of your covering over me, for you are my family redeemer.”

Those words, that request wrecks me.

That’s exactly what I long for.

I have a longing to be covered… redeemed.

I know you do too.

What a picture of everything Jesus does for us!