The Cutting of the Rings, the 44-Year Vow, and the Special Man
There is an unshakeable, legal promise woven into the fabric of the New Covenant that completely supersedes the broken, policing systems of man’s design. It is a promise of total restoration–a guarantee that after the heavy fire of a crisis has done its refining work, the Creator will always usher you into a room filled with dancing, celebration, and new life.
To see this blueprint in its full, radiant color, we have to walk right back into the jewelry store counter where I went to buy a pair of sand dollar sterling silver earrings per my mother’s request right after her stroke. I was all excited telling the clerk all about my mother and her stroke when all of a sudden, she said “I know your mother, she was just here a couple of days ago. I almost sold her this ring;” she turned around to the counter behind her and pulled out this beautiful ring with a ruby stone in the center between two diamonds. She went on to say, “your mother was almost convinced to buy it, but then she said no, not now, that special man in my life will get it for me.” The clerk went on to describe my mother as being very short of breath from bronchitis and stopped in the store to catch her breath which must be where she saw the sand dollar earrings that she asked me to get.
Later that afternoon, my mother had another respiratory arrest and was placed back on a ventilator. Unfortunately, families are not always good to each other when a member suffers from a mental illness, nor are they understanding, and react out of fear, which is how our family was. My father at a late age suffered a nervous breakdown followed by a diagnosis of bipolar illness. My two brothers insisted that our father needed to be admitted to the psych ward because of how upset he was with my mother’s stroke. His doctor said he didn’t see why he needed to be there so gave me permission to take him across town to see my mother who was just placed on the ventilator. Against my brother’s strong disagreement my father and I entered my mother’s ICU room. She was so worried about him that the minute she saw him, her vitals started stabilizing. My father opened his Bible handed it to our pastor and asked him to read Proverbs 31 The Virtuous woman.
Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies…
I remembered the ruby ring. Throughout the rest of her six months in the hospital, ventilators, three-week coma, the need for a permanent tracheostomy for breathing, and gastrostomy tube eating as her throat had been paralyzed from the stroke. During all this process, due to swelling, her wedding ring had to be cut off, the ring she wore for 44 years, so worn one side was completely flat.
The day came for her to be discharged, to come home to get back to life after stroke. So, my father and I planned a homecoming fit for the queen! He gave her that ruby ring, and brand-new wedding rings engraved with their 44 years of marriage and with our pastor present they renewed their vows. A new beginning.
Modern “fear porn” religion love to focus on the cutting off. They want you to stare at the trauma, the broken structures, the swelling of the crisis, and the terrifying headlines of an impending apocalypse. They want you to believe that when your worldly safeties are stripped away, your story is finished. But the gospel of reconciliation reveals that the cutting off is only done to make room for the new. The old physical rings of performance and fear had to pass away so that a permanent, indestructible covenant of love could be slid around our hearts.
If you are currently sitting in a heavy caregiver wilderness, or if you are mourning a part of your life that was brutally cut away by the politics of this world, look at the script. The “special man” has already purchased your tomorrow. The coma will end, the tide will wash the shell clean, and you are being beautifully led toward a celebration of joy, gratefulness, and new life that will never end.
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