The Couch

All good writing is supposed to have a good intro, right? We’ll start there. My roommate and I live in a little cabin. I love it, but it’s definitely little, you walk in and see just about everything. Enter that it has “stairs”. Someone basically once upon a time decided to put stairs in kinda the most inconvenient of places- and by stairs, I mean it’s really a solid slanted wooden ladder with railings more than it is stairs. Well, you see. We had a little old couch that really needed replacing, and so my frugal, resourceful cabin mate did just that, she bought a couch off an old lady that must have been raised in the Great Depression because she still had a board under the cushions to make sure “the springs didn’t wear out”...it felt like you sere sitting on a board, go figure. Take it out, and voila! It’s a comfortable leather couch that still smells like moth balls. What do they make moth balls out of? I still haven’t googled that one. Anywho. Back to the stairs. We decided we wanted the old couch up the said ladder-stairs in the loft. I don’t know how we did it without dying or getting hurt, or the couch falling on one or both of us; somehow it’s up there, and we’ll probably have to take an axe to it when we decide it should come down. I have a new respect for how strong my roommate is. She wielded that thing like a cage fighter. I was basically just morale support on the bottom making sure it didn’t slide back down. 

So. We have this couch now. End of story, wasn’t that great? Okay, maybe there’s more. 

We wanted a new couch because we spend a lot of time on that couch. It’s the one place we have to gather, to talk over the days events late each night. It’s the place you land when you come home and are done for the day. And we wanted it usable to more people. A love seat is nice, but a couch is better. Honestly, when I look back at this season one day, I’ll probably think a lot about this couch, or at least the many things that took place on this couch. I’m even sitting her now writing these words. The conversations, the cups of tea shared, the books read, the verses circled, it’s a bachelorette pad-need I mention the tears cried? It seems like a small thing, but it holds big moments. 

As we already know, there are a lot of seemingly small moments in life that do end up being a little larger in size than we thought. I think it’s God’s heart to spend those moments with us. I hate to use cliche or over-used statements— but my mind was blown last week. I have slowly been reading through the Psalms, not at a pace to try and get through them, but just to go through them. I came across Psalm 25:14 that says, “ The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.” It just struck me funny that the Lord confides in us. Isn’t it usually the other way around? Aren’t we the ones that are supposed to confide in the Lord? Those questions sent me on a trail of looking up definitions, and then commentaries, which caused me to stumble upon this: that the original word for confide had originally been what our present day word for divan or couch would have been. What. Jesus couches with us? JESUS COUCHES WITH US! “It properly means a couch or cushion; and then, a divan or circle of friends sitting together; then, deliberation or consultation; then, familiar contact, intimacy; and then, a “secret”- as if it were the result of a private consultation among friends....”  That’s a lot of words to try and express my thought, but they all seemed pertinent. That Jesus wants to couch with us, He wants to. As we seek His face, it’s HIS heart’s desire to confide in us. He wants to speak into those intimate moments, He wants to speak to you, through ‘secrets’ that you would hear only if it were for those couch moments. He’s okay with our thoughts at the end of the day, our verbal processing, we get to circle up with Jesus, sit close and hash it out. Those moments give Jesus the opportunity to hash it out with us too!

I’ll be honest. I’m not always very good at sitting with Jesus. I’d rather be doing, going, worshipping, writing, reading, than sitting. I realize though too, that I want to be on the inside circle of Jesus’ friends. That’s basically what this verse is talking about. The ESV translation actually says that. That the friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him and to them He makes known His covenant. I want to possess a fearing and a seeking that wants Jesus and a couch. That might look different than what your friends are doing, it might not quite fit in. I’m learning that righteousness isn’t self-righteousness. The Lord has a lot of promises and blessings for the righteous: again, a lot of them even found in the Psalms. That inside circle won’t be everyone, but it can be you. That’s something to be excited about. 

You’re always welcome over to my couch, FYI. Anytime, friend, anytime. -hannaH