The New England Patriots unveiled their Super Bowl rings from their Super Bowl win earlier this year.  The ring  commemorates this as their 5th Super Bowl win which distinguishes them as an elite team in the NFL.  The ring is rumored to have 283 diamonds.  283 diamonds seems random, doesn’t it? Not exactly.

The Patriots were down 28-3 entering the second half of the game.  As a non-Patriot’s fan, I sat and watched with glee as the Falcons outplayed the Patriots in the first half.  I was ecstatic. We thought the game was over.  OVER. No team in history had ever come back from a deficit that great.

No team until this Patriot’s team.  The Falcons did not score again in the second half of the game, and the Patriots went on to win.

This Sunday, in our lesson, I talked about significance of the threshing floor of Araunah.  Because of David’s disobedience, a plague was sent on the land and the angel of God who was spreading death was at the threshing floor of Araunah when David saw him. (2 Sam 24) The angel relents and David wants to build an altar there, at the spot where death was being spread.  The land is offered to David for free, along with animals for the sacrifice, and David responds and says “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing”. (2 Sam 24:24) As we read onto Solomon’s plans for the temple, we learn that Solomon builds the temple on the exact same site.

I challenged the women to commemorate their ‘threshing floors’- the places in their lives of pressing, crushing, pain, their sacrifices that they paid for dearly.  Those places that we would like to forget. In a previous post, I mentioned that this is the place where God often meets us.  It is from this threshing floor that we mount our greatest comebacks.  You don’t have to buy a ring, but do something. Share you story.  Give a special offering.  Change the way that you do something in your life to honor your comeback.  When you look back months or years from now, you will be able to distinguish this time and the path that it carved out for you.

~Shiney