Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold nose-ring weighing a half-shekel, and two bracelets for her arms weighing ten gold shekels, and said, ‘Tell me whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father’s house for us to spend the night?’”
NL Daily Devotion for Tuesday, September 17, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
I chose this verse because of the nose ring. Seriously. Well, okay that is why I chose it, but not literally seriously. The fact is that on May 22, 2023, I got my nose pierced. On one hand, I wondered if I wasn’t just too old to do something so audacious (I was 51 at the time). But, you know what? My namesake in the bible, when Abraham’s servant recognized by her kindness and generosity that she was the one he’d been looking for to marry Isaac, was given a gold nose-ring. It weighed about five grams, which is probably a bit heavier than the one I have. When Rebekah went back to her house, her brother took one look at the nose-ring and knew something big was going down. In a way, this little piece of jewelry was a proclamation of God’s favor. God had something in store for this young woman—she would become, literally, the mother of Israel.
Perhaps coincidentally (or perhaps God found this all quite hilarious), I met the love of my life on July 1, 2023, not six weeks after getting my nose pierced. God had something in store for this not-quite-young woman, too.
I guess my message for today is just to be open to whatever gifts life and the people in it offer you. You just don’t know where and how God is going to show up.
What story in the Bible most makes me think about my own life story in some way?
