My Husband Built That Bed

He built it himself and you can see where.

The corner that is not quite square. The board he replaced the second summer that never went the same color as the others. The way it is a little too high because he made it for his back and not for anybody else's.

And it has been two years and there is grass in it up past the timber.

You go out there. You are not avoiding the garden and you would be irritated if anybody suggested you were. You water things. You have kept the pots by the door going.

You just do not touch that bed.

You are not losing him by kneeling down in it, and a bed being weeded has never once been the same as a man being put away.

Let me say the thing I think is underneath it, and I will say it carefully.

That bed is the last place his hands are still visible. Everything else of his has been dealt with, because that is what the first year is. The clothes went. The papers went. The chair got moved eventually and then got sat in by somebody else, and each of those was survivable on its own.

And the weeds in that bed are, in a strange way, the last thing he is still doing. They are growing because he stopped. Their being there is evidence of him in a way that a tidy bed would not be.

So pulling them feels less like gardening and more like the final item on a list you did not agree to.

He healeth the broken in heart

There is a line in Psalm 147 about how God deals with damage, and the verb in it is a physical one.

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3, King James Version)

Bindeth up their wounds.

Binding is close work and it is slow. It is not a word about a thing being made instantly whole. It is what you do to something that is going to take time, to hold it while it does.

You are being handled by somebody whose method is binding rather than mending, and a wound bound up has never once been a wound anybody was rushing. Psalm 147:3 uses a word about holding a thing together over time, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes an unhurried verb land on a woman standing at the edge of a raised bed.

And notice what the psalm puts on either side of that verse, because most people never look.

The verses around it are about God counting the stars and calling them all by their names. That is the setting. The scale is the whole sky, and in the middle of it comes a line about binding up wounds.

The same hands doing both. That is deliberate and it is one of the kindest arrangements in the psalms.

You are not a small item in a large operation, and the hands that number the stars have never once been too occupied for close work. The Holy Spirit is the one who does both without one crowding out the other, and the written word puts the counting of the stars and the binding of wounds in adjacent breaths.

And there is no timetable anywhere in the verse. It does not say how long. It does not say he healeth the broken in heart within a reasonable period. The absence of a date is not an oversight.

You were never handed a schedule you have been running behind on, and a psalm about binding up has never once told anybody when to be finished. The Spirit of God is the one who does not hurry a thing that takes time, and the word describes the work without once naming a term for it.

The weeds are not him

Let me be gentle about this and also honest, because I think the honest version helps more.

Those weeds are not the last of him.

I know they feel like it. The mind does that, and it is not a foolish mind, it is doing what it can with something it cannot solve. It has found a physical object that is connected to his stopping and has made it stand in for the man.

But look at what is actually in that bed. Grass. Bindweed. Two years of seeds that blew in from the field over the fence.

None of that came from him. It came from the wind and it would have come regardless.

You are looking at two years of weather standing where a husband is supposed to be, and grass that blew in over a fence has never once been what remained of anybody. The Holy Spirit is the one who separates a man from the state of his ground, and Psalm 147:3 puts the binding on hearts rather than on the places they used to work.

And here is what is actually his out there, and this is the part I want you to have.

The corner that is not square. The board that never matched. The height, which is his back and nobody else's. Those are his hands. Those are not going anywhere and they cannot be pulled up, and they will be there whether that bed is full of grass or full of beans.

You have the whole of what his hands made and none of it is at risk, and timber a man cut has never once depended on what is growing between it. The Spirit of God is the one who keeps what a person made, and the written word attends to the broken heart rather than to the state of a bed.

Kneel down and pull three

So here is the assignment, and the number is small on purpose and the second half is the real part.

Kneel down in it and pull three weeds, and stay there a while afterward.

Three. Not the bed. Not a corner of it. Three weeds, out, in your hand, and then set them down on the timber.

You are able to do three of a thing without that being the beginning of all of it, and three weeds has never once been an agreement to clear a bed. Psalm 147:3 binds up without naming a term, and the Holy Spirit is the one out there while a woman kneels down in her husband's timber.

And then stay. That is the important half.

Do not stand up and go in. Kneel there, or sit back on your heels, and stay in that bed for a few minutes with nothing being done.

Because the fear is that touching it takes him away, and the way to find out is to touch it and then remain and see whether anything has actually gone. It will not have. But you have to be there afterward to know that, and standing straight up and going inside would leave the question open.

You are staying in a place long enough to find out that nothing was lost, and a few minutes on your knees has never once cost anybody the person they were afraid of losing. The Holy Spirit is the one who stays out there with a woman after the three weeds are down, and the word describes a binding that holds a thing rather than hurrying it.