Covered

It's February and it seems like this has been a long cold winter compared to the last few.
It's snowy the roads are icy and I seem to prefer to stay in my nice warm house with a blanket and a book :)

This morning I was studying the word atonement in my Hebrew/English Bible Lexicon and read that atonement comes from the Hebrew Kippur.  I remembered that from "Yom Kippur" - Day of Atonement.
But I read that the root for kippur is פַר kâphar a primitive root; to cover (specifically with bitumen);
Do you know what Bitumin is?   I didn't,  so i googled it of course.
Bitumen is a black, oily, viscous material that is a naturally-occurring organic byproduct of decomposed organic materials. Also known as asphalt or tar, bitumen was mixed with other materials throughout prehistory and throughout the world for use as a sealant, adhesive, building mortar, incense, and decorative application on pots, buildings, or human skin. The material was also useful in waterproofing canoes and other water transport, and in the mummification process toward the end of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt.

The ark of bulrushes daubed with asphalt and pitch, in which the infant Moses was laid in Exodus 2:3, is called in the Hebrew תֵּבָה tebah, meaning "a chest". It is also the same word used for Noah's Ark. The bulrushes (Hebrew: גֹּ֫מֶא‎‎ gome) were likely to have been papyrus, daubed with bitumen and pitch (which probably refers to the sticky mud of the Nile). (excerpt from Wikipedia)

The ark containing the three-month-old baby, Moses, was placed in reeds by the river bank (presumably the Nile) to protect him from the Egyptian mandate to drown every male Hebrew child, and found by the daughter of Pharaoh.

Bitumin - is tar.   It's basically asphalt.   I know that come spring.  When the icy roads are clear again we will have quite a few pits and holes in our roads.   Thats how life is too.  We go through our darkest days and nights.  We feel quite beat up.  Full of pits.  (Life is the pits  :)
But they can all be covered again.     The covering of the atonement.  It smooths.  It heals.  It fills.