24th May 2021

What a beautiful line. I was listening in on a song on the way to work, and through the speakers came this profound dissertation on marriage, expressed in about a hundred words. After noting that the knot was tied, years ago, and that many marital seasons of summer and winter had passed, came this beautiful description of the relational result: ‘Our beautiful tangle that we can’t unravel’. I thought that there was something for married couples to celebrate in the present, and to aspire to in the future.

What a pity it’s not the experience of all. Some seem to find a way to make their marriage unravel, and the once beautiful tangle becomes two separate spindles with thread wound tightly, severed and rolling away from each other. The tangle legally undone and straightened, and the bruised strands alone and apart. And the world, unfortunately, is too full of songs that mourn the severance and departure.

There has always only been one knot that is guaranteed to stay tied, even under threat of death. In fact, even through the ordeal of death. Nothing can undo it. Neither the present, nor the future. Neither hell, nor heaven. Neither height, nor depth. In fact, there is nothing in all creation that can pick the knot, nor even find an end to pick. “Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus,” says the Book.  It is our beautiful tangle that can’t be unravelled.

DM 24^th May 2021