Eight kids broke the dictionary this week in the most exciting spelling bee ever. Well, almost. There was this one time back in the early 70's when little Judy Chandler misspelled chauffeur to place third in the county and miss the Alabama state bee. Shofer. I blame it on phonics/fonix and the Southern accent of the pronouncer. With a little influence from the Old Testament - shofer/shofar, tomayto/tomahto. If only I had asked for the word origin. Is this French or Hebrew? Alas. Instead of $50K and a confetti shower, I got a sweet gold (color, not material) pen with Birmingham Post-Herald printed on the side. The bigger prize, though, was the solidification of my word-love-affair. Lost the pen. Kept the love. Dang! I just gave away one of my ringers in two truths and a lie!
Which brings us to today's word: recovering. Used in a sentence: We are recovering from vacation. Never has the sentiment - we need a vacation to get over our vacation - been truer. We even planned to have a couple of days at the end of our trip to relax at home this time. A little picnic at the beach club, a little toes-in-the-sand-therapy, then back to work next week all refreshed and ready to go.... yeah, not so much. Between the two of us we've had one first-ever-sudden-onset case of vertigo (Hubby) followed by one stress induced migraine (me) in the past 24 hours. True story - vertigo looks very much like a scary heart-episode. Also true story - you see all kinds of things in the ER when the beds are full and you get a makeshift cubby in the back hallway. Hello, HIPAA? Thankfully, we are both recovering today. On the plus side, I now have medical confirmation that my Hubs does have rocks in his head (BPPV). Tiny ones, but still. I've know it all along. I digress.
It's interesting, and sometimes humorous, to play a little game with "re" words. You separate the "re" from the rest of the word, change it to "again" and put it after the part that's left. Example: redo = do again; reborn = born again; relief = lief again; repeat = peat again... While this exercise wildly inaccurate for definition sake, it can be thought provoking as well. When you take re-covering apart it becomes covering again. Covering. Again. What was once covered has been uncovered but is being covered again. Is it just me, or is this a breathtaking concept? I'm almost at a loss to explain but I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes. Think of a child tucked securely under a blanket - covered. Imagine the blanket is taken away and the child is left cold, exposed, vulnerable. Then the blanket is re-placed (placed again) and the child is covered again. Re-covered. Could this be the work of grace? The re-covering of what has been exposed. The re-protecting of what is vulnerable. Re-wrapping us with the very grave-cloths warmed then vacated by our Cover-er. I believe with my shivering little heart that this is true. Cover me, Lord. Re-cover me, Lord. Selah.
Cover me Lord with your presence,
Cover me Lord with your righteousness,
Cover me Lord with your holiness,
Lord Jesus, cover me.
I need your protection from danger and harm
Shelter me safe in your strong, loving arm
Help me to see there's no cause for alarm
Lord Jesus, cover me.
Under your shadow I won't be afraid
Cover me Lord 'till the storm blows away
And then in the heat of a beautiful day
Lord Jesus cover me.
- Andrew Culverwell
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